《Created G.H.O.S.T. System - A Cyberpunk Story》


 Opening Short Story - Prologue

    ¡°Perform the SURGERY NOW!¡± Meredith Koarden screamed, clutching her ruined chest where the car door had crushed her ribs. She was the owner and one of the chief scientists of Koarden Industries, a leading company in cybernetic research and development. ¡°I¡¯ve already lost my husband tonight. I won¡¯t lose my son as well.¡± Blood stained her lips as she forced each word from her ruined body.


    All around her, the research department of the company was being transformed into a makeshift emergency operating room. The white walls and shiny metal surfaces were already splattered with blood and debris, creating a stark contrast to the pristine environment they usually maintained for their research experiments.


    But now they needed it for something else. Something more urgent. Something more desperate.


    ¡°But ma¡¯am, he¡¯s far too young! It¡¯s never even been attempted on a human before, and you want us to perform the cyber-body operation on your son?¡± Doctor Lee, one of the many doctor¡¯s slash researchers in the room, protested.


    He looked at the small body of the eighteen-month-old baby boy in the center of the room. The boy¡¯s body was surrounded by wires and machines that beeped and flashed in rapid fashion. The baby¡¯s name was Deckard Koarden, and he was the only child of Meredith and her late husband, David.


    He had been the one driving their car when they were hit by three autonomous vehicles at the same time. He had died instantly as his side of the car crumpled like a tin can under the extreme speed of the other cars.


    No matter what anyone else tried to tell her, it had been no accident.


    ¡°Then perform it on me first, if you must!¡± Meredith snapped at him, her eyes blazing with determination. Every word she spoke stained the floor around her, red with blood. Her own broken and bleeding body was the only thing that kept her from attacking the insolent man. She was lying on a stretcher next to her son, hooked up to similar life-support devices.


    ¡°But I want my son being prepped and readied for his own operation at the same time. Whatever you learn from performing the operation on my body, use it to do a better job on him. Just make sure you save him. Is that understood?¡±


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    She glanced at the two metal crates that had been brought in from the storage room. They contained the test bodies they had been using for their cybernetic experiments. They were crude and unfinished, but they were all they had on hand. They would have to replace them with proper bodies later, but for now, they had to make do.


    ¡°I know we have a couple of test bodies we have been using for other projects. Bring them here,¡± she ordered.


    Everyone in the room collectively swallowed and nodded nervously as they followed her instructions. They knew the risks and the challenges of what they were about to do.


    Meredith and Little Deckard Koarden had been rushed in only a few minutes earlier. Where she was facing life as a quadriplegic, he was much worse. The only thing keeping him alive at the moment was the mass of machines he was hooked up to. He had more tubes and wires coming out of his body than should have been possible.


    If this accident had occurred even a couple of years earlier, then he would have already been dead. It was by no means a stretch of the imagination to say the research and work his parent¡¯s company was performing had quite literally already saved his life.


    Now it was time to see if they could do it again and make it a little more permanent this time.


    At the moment, as soon as even one of those items was unplugged, everything would begin to fail. His life quite literally hung in the balance.


    Unfortunately, there was absolutely no chance that his natural body would ever recover. Not after what it had gone through and the beating it had taken. It was more than a minor miracle he had even survived long enough to reach this room. Whoever had saved him, and the boss lady, had truly earned their pay that night.


    Transplanting a human brain of any sort, baby or otherwise, into a fully cybernetic body had never been done before. Cybernetic augments of any sort had only been on the market for a few years, and they were still somewhat controversial and very expensive.


    Pushing the development of the technology and their medical applications this far, this fast, felt dangerous and more than a little exciting.


    It was as though they were all on the precipice of something groundbreaking. Or something potentially catastrophic.


    ¡°We understand, and we¡¯ll be careful. Permission to record both surgeries, ma¡¯am. They will be the first of their kind. No matter their outcome, what we are about to do is something groundbreaking,¡± Doctor Lee said, his voice trembling slightly.


    ¡°Granted, but make sure all the proprietary information stays off screen and out of the recording. You know the drill,¡± Meredith said, coughing heavily, blood flying from her mouth. ¡°Now, get to work,¡± She told them weakly, before losing consciousness.

 Opening Short Story - Chapter 1

    ¡ªNineteen Years Later¡ª


    Deckard flexed his latest hand, watching as the synth muscles flexed and twisted in response to his thoughts. The model was the latest one his mother had designed for him. It was still bulky but was a far cry from the clumsy prosthetics he had worn as a child, which had no semblance of natural movement. Those limbs hadn¡¯t even possessed any sort of synth-muscle. Everything had been servos and motors back then. Inelegant, crude, heavy, and chunky, but designed to work with what they had.


    He owed everything to his mother, who had sacrificed her own body to save his life. Without hesitation, she had chosen to transfer her brain into a metal canister and been connected to a network of computers and machines, all for him. She had given up the warmth of human contact, the sensations of touch and taste, the joys of laughter and tears. She had become a disembodied intelligence, a proverbial ghost in the machine.


    Deckard had never known what it was like to hug his mother or to feel her kiss on his cheek. Not that he would have been able to feel the gestures even if she had been capable of them. He had grown up without the sense of touch. Until a year ago, when a breakthrough in biotechnology had enabled the creation of synthetic skin. It was a revolutionary invention, one that promised to restore the feeling of being alive to millions of people who had lost their limbs or organs.


    Pain, pleasure, touch - suddenly all of the senses normal people took for granted were within reach.


    It still wasn¡¯t perfect. There were reports of some people finding the skin too sensitive, or strangely muted. Others said it felt unnatural, giving them an uncanny and off feeling. Deckard had no way of comparing it to the real thing, since he had never experienced it before. He had no frame of reference. He had missed out on so much, growing up in a mechanical body.


    Saying his life had been anything except normal would be putting it mildly. He was the son of Meredith Koarden, the mysterious and reclusive owner of Koarden Enterprises, a leading corporation in the field of cybernetics. He was the first and only person to have a fully cybernetic body. The circumstances and his extremely young age were speculated to have played a large part in its success. He had inherited his parents¡¯ brilliance, but also his mother¡¯s new curse.


    He had to deal with the challenges and dangers of living in a body that was stronger, faster, and a mind that was smarter than those around him. Others needed to sleep, whereas he rarely did. He was always thinking, talking to his mother, and being taught something new.


    He had learned to control his strength the hard way, by breaking countless toys and objects in his childhood. He was forced to monitor his energy expenditure levels to his individual joints and adjust his movements accordingly. The rudimentary sensors and visual cues helped him gauge everything as well, though they were less helpful in the beginning.


    Spending time with other people his age was never even an option, not for someone like him.


    He couldn¡¯t even count the number of items he had broken growing up during that time. Just learning a modicum of control had been a noteworthy affair, one that was constantly disregarded whenever he grew distracted, or excited, or annoyed. Really anything, control required constant focus, which a young child, no matter how smart, simply didn¡¯t possess.


    There were constant mistakes that needed to be accounted for in one fashion or another. He was the first of his kind, and that meant learning as they went for nearly everything.


    In many ways, young Deckard was a mostly living science and medical experiment. There were constant experimental adjustments to the blood formula they fed his brain. It was a mixture that was thankfully based on his own actual blood and DNA. There were a few important items like that they had kept from his old body. However, despite being in a cybernetic shell, his brain was still growing and developing. Though not, in entirely normal ways.


    The stem of his brain had become intertwined with parts of the electronic hardware they had stuck in there when he was a baby. They could no longer safely remove those pieces, as they were now a part of him.


    Instead, a new computer language for the cybernetic portions of his brain needed to be developed as a result. A language that would allow them to communicate with the tech his brain had taken over. Once that was accomplished, the team found an almost seamless connection between the computer and Deckard¡¯s mind.


    It might have been an accident, a unique modification of a developing mind, but the knowledge they wrought was priceless. As a result, entire industries took a giant leap forward.


    His life growing up had been filled with accidents such as that. There had been so much for everyone to learn, and while they treated him well; his childhood had definitely not been normal.


    There was no chance his mother would ever have let them abuse him in any sort of way. The fact of the matter was though, that she was also a scientist and one who had permanently lost her body. That said, being stuck as a brain hooked up to an entire company¡¯s network kept her busy, at least for a while.


    Deckard wasn¡¯t the only one growing and changing during his developing years. His mother had been as well.


    It was because of her and her efforts that he now had the body they had just slipped his hardened braincase inside.


    She was spending ever more time researching and getting lost in her various projects. Without a physical body to keep her grounded, Meredith was slowly forgetting the things that had made her human. At the present time, the sole thing that seemed to keep her grounded and invested in humanity was her son.


    A young man who struggled to connect with people due to his own issues.


    Gradually, taking it slow at first, Deckard tested his new body, exploring its range of motion and capabilities. His arms had been redesigned to be more compact and slightly more aerodynamic. They were also a couple of inches shorter than before. The joints in his wrists allowed him to rotate his hands around in a full circle now as well, which was a completely new feature. Flexing his fingers, he felt the smooth metal against his sensitive synthetic skin.


    He liked it. Everything was so much more responsive than before. More tactile.


    Then there were his legs. They had also lost a few inches in height, and no longer resembled massive metal monstrosities. This latest major overhaul had slimmed them down and given them a more realistic shape and texture. He could see lines of hydraulic veins and synth-muscles under the artificial skin.


    He knew his body was still far from being a perfect replica of a human one, but it was closer than ever before. He felt nothing but gratitude and awe for his mother and the scientists and engineers who had worked on the refinements. Each of them working toward the goal of giving him a chance to experience something resembling a normal life.


    He had a routine for adjusting to his new body, one that he had followed countless times before. Every time he received a new body or a new part, he had to relearn how to use it, and how to adapt to its strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes he had to do it almost every day, as his body was constantly being upgraded or repaired. Other times, when he was luckier, there were longer breaks in between the new sessions and he could truly settle into his body.


    Either way, it was an exercise that was simply designed to familiarize him with the limits of his body. Whether it was an entirely new one, or simply a replacement limb, he needed to know the information on his new body. That meant how all the little changes and improvements they had made affected its useability, performance, and handling.


    The routine was designed to push him to his new limits and familiarize him with them. It told him how much weight each limb and part could hold, the max force they put out, along with their max extensions. It was an overall improvement of his awareness of his new body or limbs and its limits.


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    The exercise was largely based around four separate exercises that his mother had bundled into one thirty-minute exercise. There were parts from Tai-chi, Yoga, Capoeira, and Krav-Maga mixed in for good measure.


    If Deckard still had the flesh body he had been born with, the exercises would have been exhausting and sweaty, pushing him to his physical limits. But he didn¡¯t have to worry about things like breathing, sweating, or fatigue. He didn¡¯t have lungs, sweat glands, or muscles that could tire. He only had a brain encased in a durable, hardened braincase that provided it with nutrients and stimuli.


    He didn¡¯t suffer from dysmorphia, and the same was true for phantom limb syndrome. He had lost his original body when he was too young to remember ever having it and had never formed a stable self-image.


    Since then, he had gone through so many bodies, so many changes, that he had no idea what he was supposed to look like. The only constant in his life was his braincase, which had been upgraded several times as he grew older, but always retained the same basic shape and function.


    It was the only thing that defined his identity.


    Whereas other people had biological factors to help guide them toward identifying as male, female, or something else entirely depending on their personal feelings. He had nothing. Without a proper body of his own, the most he could say was that he had been born male. That was all. However, there were no hormones or body parts associated with that particular gender.


    The entire concept of gender relating to the emotional aspect was a foreign concept for him. Without the proper hormones, he didn¡¯t feel any attraction, desire, or identity related to his birth gender. He was simply a brain, a mind, a consciousness.


    Deckard was, for all intents and purposes, genderless.


    At times, he wondered if he was missing something, if there was more to being a human that he was somehow unaware of. He had grown up in a sterile environment and had skipped out on many of the human experiences that shaped the doctors and researchers he interacted with.


    He knew that the scientists and engineers were trying to recreate the human body and its constant need for different chemicals as faithfully as possible, all to give him a chance to feel what they felt. But he also knew that they were still far from achieving that goal. There were still many mysteries and challenges that they had not solved.


    Maybe someday they would succeed, and he would be able to comprehend what he had been lacking. But that day was still in the distant future, at least according to his understanding of their various projects.


    His musings were interrupted by the voice of a nearby technician. His name was Max, and he had been working at the facility for a couple of years by that point. He was holding the latest model of ink-sheet as he speedily took notes with the special pen that allowed him to interact with the thin screen. He was taking notes on Deckard¡¯s performance, along with that of the new equipment, recording every detail and measurement.


    ¡°How does this iteration feel?¡± Max asked, looking at Deckard with a friendly smile.


    Deckard paused and scanned his body for any anomalies or discomforts. He found none. The new body was in good condition, with no hitches or obvious problems. It had made it through the earlier exercise with flying colors.


    ¡°I like it, so far at least,¡± he replied. ¡°It feels good, and everything moves even smoother than before.¡±


    This was another part of the tedious maintenance routine they methodically carried out after every limb or full body exchange. Deckard was responsible for providing detailed diagnostics and performance reports to the engineering team on how each item held up and operated. It was tradition that the first exhaustive evaluation commenced immediately after each newly installed cybernetic component was installed. It was followed by subsequent check-ins after one week, one month, and additional intervals, depending on how long he actually kept whatever it was.


    He never seemed to retain the same cybernetic limbs or full cyber-body for more than six months. They were always improving something and swapping out one part or another.


    His mother, Meredith, was constantly pushing their various specialized research groups. Each team was at least partly responsible for the constant state-of-the-art upgrades to her son¡¯s cybernetic physiology. Over the years, Deckard¡¯s control had improved. However, technology hadn¡¯t kept up with him, and each body, while better than the last, was still clunky.


    No matter what he did, something always ended up broken. Whether it was a limb or a simple actuator, the team would inevitably decide it was time to replace the entire piece. Not to mention the entire world was hot on their company¡¯s tails in terms of research. They refused to be left behind and were doing their best to cover every section that Koarden Enterprises was not actively involved in researching.


    It was true that many of the initial developments had been done by his parent¡¯s company. However, after that, they had begun to concentrate their efforts on items that Deckard used and abused the most.


    Without the need to sleep, Meredith led many of the projects herself. Her mind was constantly active, researching, learning, running simulations, and controlling projects that only she knew about.


    Max plugged a thin cable into a micro-port on each of his limbs and then his torso as he went through the specs and information it had gathered in the last few minutes.


    It was all information Deckard could see through his own HUD, but that he typically ignored after going through the process so many times.


    The tech copied the information over and speedily scanned it with his fleshware eyes, before frowning as he came across a line he didn¡¯t like.


    ¡°Can you pull up the setting for your right ankle? It looks like you currently have a little too much roll right now. We need to stiffen it up, otherwise that joint will start giving you problems before anything else. I¡¯ll add a note to the file, so this becomes hardcoded into the next iteration as well. We don¡¯t want to keep messing with it every time.¡±


    That was another item they had been gradually adding to each of the limbs as well. Hardcoded settings for the proper limits on each item. There had always been limiters in the settings for them, but they had never been hardcoded before and it was all too easy to stress them past the setting limits.


    Deckard worked with Max for a while longer before he was finally able to excuse himself. He would have liked to say he hurried off to his next meeting, but the truth was, his new body was still a tad awkward to use.


    Instead, he took his time walking back to the section of the research facility that belonged to him and his mother. This next meeting was one he had set up on his own with his mom for a project that he had been tossing around in his head for a while.


    Whether or not it was feasible would depend almost entirely on her. His own efforts in working on the project had reached several different blocks that he had been unable to work through, no matter what he tried.


    While his mother no longer had a body and existed solely as a brain with a damaged stem, that was constantly learning. He wasn¡¯t much better. The main difference between them was that his brainstem hadn¡¯t been damaged during his surgery.


    However, even with his body, it was still artificial, and he found himself with a lot of downtime that a normal organic human wouldn¡¯t. That meant Deckard also spent much of his time in the same manner as his mother. Learning, researching, and even occasionally running simulations, though those required far more computational power than he currently had access to on a regular basis.


    Regardless, his efforts at constant learning had resulted in a project that he at least believed had the potential to change everything. In theory anyway. Despite doing his best to learn everything he could to handle it on his own, in the end, all he had been able to do was create a bare framework. Part of it was a matter of resources -since he was trying to keep the project private- the larger reason was simply he had underestimated how complex certain portions would be. And by a very significant margin.


    It was why he needed this meeting with his mother. He needed her help, and he wanted to do things properly. This wasn¡¯t something that would be completed in a short amount of time, even with her help. If she came onto the project, then it would be able to reach entirely new heights. With that in mind, he had approached this meeting as an official one and set it up through the official channels. This was not something to be discussed over the proverbial dinner table, least of all, since neither he nor his mother owned a dining table.


    Meredith¡¯s office had a special hologram projector built into the chair and all the walls and ceiling. They allowed her to sit at her desk and walk around the room as needed whenever she met with someone. The facsimile of a physical presence calmed people down, even when they knew she wasn¡¯t really there.


    The projection of his mother was all Deckard had known until he finally met her ¡®Spark¡¯ when he was ten years old. That had been when he was fitted with his first ¡®NetConnect¡¯ for visual and audio net interfacing.


    That experience had been interesting and completely changed their relationship. On the net, his mother could have a body, and they could feel each other. At ten years of age, he had gotten the first hug from his mother that he could remember.


    It was little wonder that since then the item that had seen the most upgrades and advanced the most was his NetConnect. What had started out as a somewhat low-resolution experience was now almost indistinguishable from real life for him. He¡¯d been told it wasn¡¯t quite there yet for everyone else. However, the latest version of the NetConnect was now able to draw on the image processors inside his eyes to make everything look the same for him. The only difference was a small, hardcoded watermark in the upper right corner.


    In the net, where Meredith could touch her son, was unsurprisingly how she preferred to interact with him. Which is why his desire to have this meeting in her office instead caught her by surprise. Sure, she knew about his special project, if not the exact details, but that was his project, and she gave him his privacy.


    Deckard sat down in front of her desk while the projectors flickered to life. He had a binder and an ink-sheet in his hands, not that he needed them. He simply felt that they made him look more professional for the meeting.


    Meredith appeared with a burst of light, her fingers steepled together, and a look of solemn amusement dancing in her eyes. It was the only sign of emotion on her otherwise blank face.


    ¡°Alright, Deckard, I am here, and thirty minutes have been set aside for this meeting, as you requested. Let¡¯s get started. Show me what this mysterious project you¡¯ve been working on for the last little while has all been about.¡±

 Opening Short Story - Chapter 2

    ¡°First off, you should know that it doesn¡¯t actually have a name yet. It is more of an idea that I have set up into a cohesive and workable format. I have started on the design and programming for it; however, I have run into a problem with how to actually make it function.¡± With that opening spiel over, Deckard took control of a projector on the office wall and began showing his mother everything.


    Even with the enormous amount of computational resources at her beck and call, it still took his mother a few seconds to understand what she was seeing.


    ¡°This is brilliant Deckard. This first part has the potential to help the lives of everyone who has been struggling to adapt to their cybernetic prosthetics. The next part can help people learn subjects in the same manner that you and I now do, decreasing schooling time to a fraction of what it currently is. Progress in all research sectors would skyrocket as new people entered and they would be able to easily stay on top of all the new research.¡±


    Her projection tapped a finger to her lips as she read through his work and copious notes. The two areas she had mentioned were only two out of an outlined six categories.


    ¡°I see the framework here, but I don¡¯t see a way for any of this to interact with the person or directly help them.¡±


    Deckard nodded. ¡°That is part of the problem I have been working on. Programming is able to help mitigate some of the problems, but that doesn¡¯t interface directly with the average human. Using their NetConnect for the learning portion is possible, but slower than I had originally intended.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, yes. I can see why you came to me. To take this project to where you have truly envisioned it, you will need more resources.¡± She waved her see-through, glowing hand, and the projection on the wall was split in half. ¡°We might be able to use this. I know you are familiar with the concept of nanites.¡±


    He snorted. ¡°Who isn¡¯t? They are practically the holy grail of technology in everyone¡¯s mind. The problem is no one has ever created a battery small enough to power them.¡±


    ¡°They still haven¡¯t, but with your body, we could use wireless capacitive charging. I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll still lose some of them, but we¡¯ll be able to start learning more about the process, at least. As long as we include the programming for them to create more when they fall below a certain level¡­¡± She let the idea dangle, knowing how much it would interest him.


    ¡°Where would we keep their¡­ factory? I¡¯m always changing bodies and parts.¡±


    ¡°Your braincase, the hardened liner, is perfect for something like this. We can include a small port through which they can leave and come back through and that is it. I have been meaning to upgrade your braincase again for a while now. The nanites can also help to ensure that your brain stays in optimal condition. They should work even better than the sensors we have developed up to this point. In theory, they could help modulate your hormones and neuro-chemicals so you would feel more like a normal person.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t need to sell them so hard, mom. If you have been wanting to include them in the next iteration of my braincase anyway, why only mention it now?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a larger change than I have made in the past and is slightly invasive. It felt like something that I should talk to you about before I simply went ahead and did it.¡±


    Deckard stared at the six categories he had created and added a seventh. ¡°I want to be able to control and monitor all the code that goes into them.¡±


    ¡°I would expect nothing less, considering this is your idea and project. However, any nanites that are going to be doing anything inside your brain will be monitored by me as well. Not that I don¡¯t trust your programming skills, honey, but I have far more experience when it comes to playing around with the human brain.¡± She said wryly.


    It was the absolute truth. The hardened braincases were her creation, along with everything that went with them.


    He was fine with that. There were far too many things that could go wrong simply because of his own ignorance. The brain was something that you didn¡¯t play around with. It was the control center for his body. If something happened to it, then he was screwed.


    He was perfectly fine with his mother taking control in these circumstances. All he wanted to do was monitor everything and continue learning for later. The information would be invaluable for other people once the project left the trial phase.


    Deckard was aware of his shortcomings and was already working to correct them. Depending on someone else was natural and there was nothing wrong with doing so, especially not when they knew more than you. Some people seemed to detest accepting help from others, even when the other person was clearly more knowledgeable than they were on the subject.


    He was not one of those people. It would make even less sense if that was the case, considering he was the one who had gone to his mother asking for her help in the first place.


    For the remaining time of their meeting, they worked out the details of their partnership on the project.


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    Meredith had already determined that the original specifications of the nanite project needed to be changed. They had been more all-purpose in design originally -and while they still needed that functionality to a certain degree- a large portion of what they would be doing with his project would be inside the brain.


    That meant that they needed to be changed, and additional features needed to be added to their programming. Considering their microscopic size, making any sort of modification to them was a near monumental task. All the programming for them was already being offloaded to a CPU that would be installed in his braincase. They would receive their commands wirelessly, in a continuous feed, alongside the energy signal.


    They were too small to contain any sort of large memory module for individual actions. This was his mother¡¯s compromise, and it was a good one, assuming it worked. There were a few problems with maintaining the various signals inside the body. However, failsafes could be built into the code or the nanites for those occurrences, and they would find other workarounds.


    They were merely at step one, and they had already made a tremendous amount of progress due to the combination of projects.


    As soon as Deckard left his mother¡¯s office, he hurried off to his own. His mind was swirling with possibilities and ways to make the project work even better. Now that there was a definite method of how it would all interact with the person, he could start fine-tuning everything and he couldn¡¯t wait to get started.


    There were so many ways that this could help people in the future. Truly, they were living in the golden age of humanity.


    ***


    Screw humanity and screw this project!


    Deckard and his mother had been working on the still nameless project for over a year now, and things had begun to change in the outside world.


    Never before had the overall populace been happier. They were well fed; they had access to good jobs, cheap, but good education, and even their housing was less expensive than it had been in years. The people were happy.


    The problem was the other corporations. They had started to eye what his mother and father had created. All the work they had done for the cybernetics industry and people as a whole, to the other corporations, all of it meant nothing but more potential money in their pockets.


    They had yet to be successful in any of their attacks, legal or otherwise, but gradually, public sentiment was starting to turn against them.


    All it meant for Deckard was that he was quickly losing interest in his little project, despite the major progress they had made with it over the last year.


    He had started the project to help people, and maybe in a small part to help him understand the part of his humanity that had been lost. Now, those very same people had turned against him and his mother.


    Why was he trying to help people who were actively working to hurt them? It made no sense to him, and as a result, his passion for the project dwindled.


    He continued to learn and work on it, but the magic that had made the idea so great had vanished. Now it was just another job. It still had the same wide scope and potential to change everything, only now he was less interested in even revealing it to the world.


    His mother had been working through all the issues that had arisen from putting the little nanite factory inside his new braincase. An extra-hardened model that she had designed for him. It was a little larger than normal to accommodate everything, but it had needed to be. It contained the factory, a new nutrition-feed system, and a backup power generator.


    Most of that had all ended up beneath his brain, which meant the rest of his actual head had then needed to be redesigned.


    After they had worked through those issues though, the real progress on it could finally begin.


    Deckard¡¯s programming of the CPU control unit and the first of the installed modules for it was an exercise in patience. There were so many interconnecting parts that getting it to work together while transmitting the correct information to the proper nanites in the precise sections was almost impossible.


    Even now, what they were doing wasn¡¯t exactly the best method. They were bouncing the location data for each nanite of each other to create a virtual map of sorts. They would then use both the map and the bounced location data to keep track of them for the needed information.


    The problem with using that method is it created lag, and by the time he received the information, it was already out of date. Not by much, milliseconds, sometimes only even picoseconds, however, when dealing with the sort of microscopic sizes that they were, that was plenty.


    Sending them to pre-programmed locations was met with more success. The problem with doing that is no one¡¯s body is exactly the same on the inside. That becomes doubly true when you start dealing with prosthetics and other items that they were trying to help people with.


    The solution ended up being a full-body scan of sorts. When the user first received their application of nanites, they would disperse throughout their entire system, mapping everything. They would be carried through every single working vein in the body at some point. Thankfully, since all they were doing was mapping everything, they didn¡¯t require a lot of energy during this period.


    The bots would then gather together around the person¡¯s NetConnect device that sat on the top of their cervical spine. The entire process would normally take a few days as they would be going through the brain as well. At least that was the case in the beginning. As time went on Deckard began to notice some interesting behavior amongst the tiny little robots.


    He would hesitate to call it any form of proper intelligence, but it was clear that they were learning. The paths they were choosing had become gradually more refined, parts of his body that required more time to examine suddenly had more of the bots. Then there was the scans of his brain itself, little by little they were growing in detail.


    It was an interesting and unexpected quirk that came from them swarming together. He couldn¡¯t wait to see what affects it would have on the design of his project, if any.


    All of the data would be logged onto a silica Prism that had been plugged into an open port.


    After it had all been logged, a profile would be constructed for them, and then their real treatment could begin.


    That was the plan, at least. In theory, it would work. In actuality, there were a few more difficulties that they needed to work through before it was ready to be shown to anyone.


    However, that isn¡¯t to say they didn¡¯t test it out. They did. The mapping function worked great on Deckard¡¯s brain.


    Even Meredith used them on herself. She found that they were far more accurate than many of the sensors she already had monitoring her brain.


    With that, the first stage of the project had officially come to a close. They were ready to start concentrating on the interface and the parts that would really help people.

 Opening Short Story - Chapter 3

    The interface and how the program interacted with the nanites was mainly Deckard¡¯s portion of the project. Meredith had been responsible for getting his vision to its current state, and it was something that she had done exceedingly well.


    It was Deckard¡¯s turn take over once more now. The baton had been passed back to him.


    And not that Meredith needed it, but it left her with a little bit more time to concentrate on all the problems that the other companies were creating for them. The law was on their side. Unfortunately, some sixth sense he had never experienced before was telling him that wouldn¡¯t matter in the slightest.


    These companies were out for blood, and they wouldn¡¯t stop until it had been drawn. The only question was, how far everyone was willing to go?


    Logically speaking, Koarden Enterprises had far more money and resources than any of the others. Even if they combined together to work against them, it would be hard to match the power his mother had accumulated over the last few years.


    She had her own plans for handling the situation and it required all the attention that she could give it. That was why he was so glad that they had finished the portion that really required her constant attention on the project.


    Nevertheless, it was his time to shine and bring everything to life.


    Body


    Enhance+/Strengthen+/Ambidextrous/Smooth Nerves/Health Studies+/Surgical Training+/Next Page¡­


    Intelligence


    Processes+/Threads+/Additional Core+/Next Page¡­


    Mental


    Dysmorphia/Self Image/Know Thyself/Meditation+/Music+/Next Page¡­


    NetConnection


    Hacking+/Programming+/Avatar/Firewall+/Breach+/Program Design+/Next Page¡­


    Technology


    Electrical Engineering+/Mechanical Engineering+/General Engineering+/Civil Engineering+/Technical Ability+/Fast Hands/Modifications+/Cybernetics+/Next Page¡­


    Nanite


    Overload/Build More/Upgrade/Self-Repair/Healing/Next Page¡­


    Learning


    Absorb Data Prism


    It was more than a little barebones still, but the framework was there. He had added a few subcategories to everything that he thought would be useful for himself, more so than for regular people.


    Despite that, just having the menu in front of his face for once and connected to the nanites gave him a sense of real accomplishment.


    There was a lot that needed to be done, but he was making progress.


    The interface that worked with the nanites was still a work in progress in certain areas, but it was up and running. That meant he could start concentrating on one problem at a time.


    His mother had even set aside additional server resources for him so he could run all the simulations he needed for it. All the information he was gathering was being collated into their appropriate categories for later assimilation. There was too much for him to keep track of, and the automated simulations helped him become even more efficient than he already was.


    It also kept him inside and away from the growing unrest that existed outside the walls of their protected campus. The campus was a large area where well over a dozen buildings that belonged to Koarden Enterprises all resided. Each building belonged to a different branch of the company, whether it was research, production, administration, or simply a large dormitory.


    They had it all on the campus.


    It wasn¡¯t the only one they owned and operated, either. They weren¡¯t known as the largest company in the world for no reason.


    Normally, the corporations coming against them were simply asking for a glorified suicide and nothing more. The only reason things were different this time was because they had all banded together.


    It was going to be a long-drawn-out affair, and as long as everything stayed above board, he was sure things would be fine. Except, they had already proven that they were willing to get their hands dirty.


    The time was coming for his mother to start reacting in kind, and he couldn¡¯t wait to see what she did.


    The other companies all tended to play to the public perception, something that didn¡¯t truly matter when Meredith and Dereck Koarden owned the company almost entirely by themselves. That was why the other companies had been attacking their rights to the patents. It was really the only angle they had to work with.


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    At least, it was unless they really wanted to get their hands dirty. However, that was a step that they seemed leery of taking just yet. Once they started attacking the facilities and people, there was no turning back for real. There was no telling how Meredith would react, and they all knew that.


    The massive amount of power she wielded from the shadows and in the financial world had scared them silly.


    Unfortunately, as everyone knew, fear only worked for so long. That was especially the case when they were all ganging up together and creating a sort of echo chamber where they could work themselves into a frothing mess.


    That was what his mother and everyone who was helping her were dealing with at the moment.


    Deckard took a moment to pull up the cameras monitoring the front gate of the campus and felt a phantom surge of emotion. It was something that had begun happening to him since they had implemented the nanites. They were better at managing his neuro-chemicals, at least kind of.


    He was now getting these phantom surges that told him there should have been some sort of emotion there, but that was all. The biochemical solution still wasn¡¯t good enough to naturally produce all the chemicals that a normal body did.


    It was a step in the right direction, but that was all.


    Deckard closed the screens that showed camped-out masses trying to boycott the company with their vitriol-spewing signs.


    He didn¡¯t feel like leaving his office anymore, but he also didn¡¯t really want to work on the project at the moment either.


    The problem was, he didn¡¯t really have any hobbies. There hadn¡¯t been a need for them up to that point in his life. He was always busy learning or getting used to a new body or limb, working on some new project. There was always something to keep him busy.


    This was the first time that he could remember where he simply didn¡¯t want to do something. It made him wonder just how much the nanites were already changing him. Was this another of their effects? Was the reason he was always on the go because of how badly his brain¡¯s chemicals had been mismanaged?


    It was a scary thought, but also one that required some thought. It had allowed him to achieve great focus for years on end, and while it might have been accidental, that was still a very nice item to have in his proverbial back pocket.


    There were no signs that he would have issues concentrating in the future, however, normal people had limits on how long they could focus for. Up to that point, that had largely not been the case for him.


    Either way, this was the first time he had been forced to think about something as mundane as a hobby, and he had no idea about where to even start.


    All he ended up accomplishing was staring out the fake window for five minutes while his mind went in circles like a glorified hamster wheel. Eventually, he decided to do a few searches on the net and see what others did as hobbies. He immediately dismissed all items that required other people, as he had no real friends, nor access to the outside world at the moment, in any case. Besides, with his fully cybernetic body interacting with normal people had always been a challenge.


    He moved on past those items to the hobbies that he could do by himself.


    Listening to music, Reading, Playing Video Games, Watching a Movie, or some other form of entertainment. The list continued on, but those were the four that grabbed his attention right away. He had heard some of the researchers and scientists that he occasionally interacted with talk about these items before. He had never been interested in them before, something that he was now realizing was a little odd.


    Now, each one refused to let his attention go until he learned more about their respective subjects.


    Over the next day, Deckard proceeded to do a deep dive into each of them, learning everything he could before actually trying anything out. A lot of information that he learned from one subject was applicable to the others as well. Just as with programs and parts, not everything was created equal. There were good books, games, movies, and music, and utter trash ones as well. However, that didn¡¯t necessarily mean they were bad. Some people apparently seemed to enjoy them because of their trashy quality.


    It would be up to him to decide what he liked and why. He couldn¡¯t let others decide for him.


    Unfortunately, by the time he finished learning all of that, he was ready to get back to work. Actually, exploring his own desire and interest in a hobby would have to wait until later.


    For now, he was in the middle of something important, whether or not, it would ever see the light of day was another matter entirely. He was willing to continue working on it, and even finish it. Letting it go public, out to the people that were causing them all these problems right now, was another matter entirely.


    He was having serious second thoughts on that particular course of action.


    Gradually, the program began to change and become refined as additional items were added or taken away. Still, it had no name. It was easier that way. With no name, it couldn¡¯t be found in the database of official projects. And while no one would ever dare to question Meredith or even Deckard about what they were doing, that didn¡¯t mean people didn¡¯t snoop.


    All the programming that Deckard had done before bringing it to his mother needed to be redone. It was useful in creating the initial idea, so it was by no means useless. Once the actual medium of distribution had been settled on, in this case, the nanites, much of the code needed to be tweaked.


    He was fine with that; he had already known that would be the case when he wrote it. The initial code had been almost more of a proof of concept in some ways. Now, what they were doing was creating the real thing.


    The real breakthrough though, came when Deckard began exploring potential hobbies again. In this case, it was video games. As he began playing them, he learned that many of them already included mechanics similar to what he was trying to do. A few of the games did it really well, most did not, but they almost all had something he could use.


    The entire idea was to help people get used to their body¡¯s or to help them heal, learn, and become better in some way. None of that could simply be handed to them on a silver platter though, they needed to work for it. Implementing an experience system would have been an interesting choice, but it held too many ways of being exploited.


    No, he needed another way to do the same thing.


    It did give him some ideas though. Before playing those games, he had never even realized that he was trying to recreate something that already existed in a somewhat similar form. That realization brought with it a distinct understanding of where his own lacking knowledge in general topics existed.


    It was something that he needed to fix.


    He had created this project to help humanity, but at the end of the day, what did he really know about them? He didn¡¯t live among them and was practically a different species at this point. Everything in his life had been created so he could mimic them, and yet he had never really learned how to actually do that mentally.


    All of that led into his next hobby, virtually exploring the world. He couldn¡¯t and didn¡¯t really even want to leave the campus. Yet, he found that he needed to learn more about people and their daily lives.


    Each afternoon, and night, where before he would have worked on minor projects, something that would have given his brain a break, he now explored the world. He didn¡¯t need to sleep, though he still did occasionally.

 Opening Short Story - Chapter 4

    Over the last few weeks, Deckard had learned a lot about the world and how people lived. There had been so much that he had never known about before. Everything from how people earned their money to the way they spent their time. He had watched people play, walk, work, and even on one occasion make love. That had stirred up some serious phantom emotion surges inside him.


    He had seen how people struggled with their cybernetic prosthetics on occasion. Many of them were refusing to accept the new hardware as a true replacement for their missing limb.


    He had already known that was an issue and had even incorporated a fix into the project. Watching as people dissociated from their limbs, and even in some cases actively abused them, was eye-opening for him.


    Thankfully, not everything was like that. Most of the people he watched appeared to truly be happy for the most part. What he had believed to be true before was, in fact, the truth. The general populace all seemed to be content for the most part. There was a small subset that was unhappy for one reason or another, but even those people had plenty of food and clean clothes.


    The world was in a good state, but that didn¡¯t mean it couldn¡¯t be better.


    During his time studying the people, the world, and various games, Deckard continued to change parts of the project. Sections were added for areas that he hadn¡¯t considered before. He knew he couldn¡¯t solve everything with what they were doing, but it could show everyone what was possible.


    Finally, he reached a point where everything was working in one form or another. Only a few systems had been fully tested by that point.


    It was just a matter of time before he had all the categories in the same top form and was fully tested and working.


    Unfortunately, it was time he was destined to never have.


    The outcry against Koarden enterprises had been growing worse during the time he was absorbed in learning about the world. And it had finally reached a tipping point. An armed company of trained personnel was in the process of breaching the front gates of the campus at that very moment.


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    Alarms were going off everywhere and people were scrambling to make their way to safe rooms.


    In response to their actions, Meredith had begun activating her own plans. Teams that she had placed around the globe at different corporation headquarters began their own breaching actions. At the same time, she began live streaming the attack on their campus with the headline ¡®You Caused This!¡¯


    She wanted everyone to know that everything that came next was their own fault.


    There was just one little detail she forgot. Deckard was still on the campus, and he was very much in a vulnerable position.


    The world could only watch in growing horror as the armed squad swept through the Koarden Enterprises campus executing everyone. That wasn¡¯t what they had been protesting for, none of them had thought that something like this would be the result of their actions.


    Scientists, doctors, students, interns, and entire families all lived on the campus, and none of them were safe from the massacre. There were defenses that had been put in place, and they did an admirable job of protecting everyone. However, they had never been designed to keep out an insurgent group with this sort of training and tactical gear.


    It didn¡¯t help that the government wasn¡¯t even coming to help. They were turning a blind eye to everything that was going on. It was something that Meredith would never forget.


    Deckard had just uploaded all the latest updated files to the secure server he was sharing with his mother when the alarms began blaring.


    Unfortunately, he had never been trained in self-defense, there had never been a need. The closest he had ever come to it was the exercises he used to get used to his new bodies and limbs.


    The only thing he could do once the alarm started blaring was head for the closest safe location. It wasn¡¯t actually a bunker, but it was close. However, the closest one was several floors below him, and already full and sealed by the time he reached it.


    It was the same for the second and third safe rooms that he tried as well. He never got to try for a fourth one.


    The armed company of soldiers found him as he was running through the corridor and opened fire without even saying anything.


    Deckard felt the bullets cutting through his metallic body, severing all the sensory connections that they had worked so long to get right. In seconds he was nothing more than a twitching mess on the floor while the damaged and mostly destroyed body sparked and jerked with each spastic spark.


    ¡°Is this the son?¡± One of the soldiers asked.


    ¡°Who can say? Supposedly, he goes through bodies, like you go through underwear. Shoot it in the head a few times and then we¡¯ll take it as a trophy just in case.¡± Another said just outside of Deckard¡¯s failing vision.


    There was a loud crack of noise and then everything went dark.

 Opening Short Story - Epilogue

    Meredith¡¯s digital scream echoed through the speakers all around the building as she witnessed her son get torn apart and then murdered. The soldiers standing above his body had even poured several dozen rounds into his hardened brain case. It was made to withstand a few hits, but it had never been tested against that sort of abuse.


    The lights suddenly went out as she cut the power to nearly everything but a few specific items.


    ¡°You have gone too far this time. I will make sure you all regret this. Every single one of you, and the corporations that dared put this plan into action. My son wanted to help humanity, and you just murdered him. And for what? Patents and information that we legitimately own and helped create.¡±


    The teams she had sent out to all the different headquarters received a slight change in orders. If she was going to destroy these companies, then she was going to do it as completely as possible. That meant taking their schematics, research information, and everything else that might be useful.


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    The human component would all be eliminated no matter what. When she was finished, they would have no leadership, and no secrets left.


    Then, her true revenge could begin. They had only wanted to help everyone, and this was how the world had repaid them. By standing to the side and doing nothing while they were attacked.


    She watched helplessly as the soldiers took hold of her son¡¯s head. A stream of hydraulic fluid, and nutrient liquid dripping behind them as they ran through the building.


    Why hadn¡¯t she concentrated on defenses and weapons more? If she had she might have been able to do something to stop them from leaving with her son¡¯s head.


    Meredith would keep tracking them though, no one would be able to escape her sight. She would get her son back, even if it was only to bury him properly. He was not someone¡¯s trophy, but a person, and he would be treated as such.


    She didn¡¯t care what she had to do, not anymore. Her last connection to humanity had just been taken from her, and they would know her wrath.


    Short Story ¨C End

 Divergence One

    In November of the year 1900, Nikola Tesla was preparing to begin construction on his latest project. It was to be known as the Wardenclyffe Tower, and it would be a wireless transmission station the likes of which the world had never seen.


    He was not the only one attempting this. Another man by the name of Guglielmo Marconi was doing his own version of a wireless transmission station. In fact, he had already proven his concept viable at short range during the American Cup yacht races the year before.


    However, Tesla was not attempting to merely transmit voice over long ranges like his competitor. No, he intended to send messages, and even facsimile images as well. All of it depended on his tower and the carefully crafted science he had put together.


    At least, it would once he got an investor who believed in the project as much as he did. That was when financier J.P. Morgan entered the picture. He had been impressed by Marconi¡¯s work with the yacht races the previous year, but not the man himself. As a result, he refused to work with the man.


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    Tesla¡¯s many patents, however, did impress him, and by March 1901, a contract was signed between them.


    He began work on the tower immediately, placing orders for everything he needed right away.


    Then the plan changed in June of that year when he read a magazine article about Marconi. It talked about how the man was already transmitting his signals farther than physicists of the time had thought possible, -beyond the distant horizon-, and how he was accomplishing it by using Nikola¡¯s own Tesla coil.


    Enraged, he brought the article to J.P. Morgan along with his request for more funding. Although initially hesitant, the financier finally saw reason and wrote him a new check. He also personally handled suing Guglielmo Marconi into the ground.


    By September 1910, the fully completed Wardenclyffe Tower was revealed to the public. It did everything he had promised it would, and one more thing. It could wirelessly transmit power now as well.


    It was the beginning of a new age, and Nikola Tesla was at its helm.

 Chapter 1

    Trace ¡®Tune¡¯ Delevey was not happy with how this latest job was going. All the information was supposed to have been included in the data prism he had been given by the job broker. It should have been a simple matter of sneaking in past two drugged-up Virtual-Connect addicts and grabbing the goods.


    Except that wasn¡¯t the case at all. It wasn¡¯t just two mostly mind-toasted addicts. Or at least it wasn¡¯t now. In the beginning, it had been. Now, there were twelve of them, and they were in the process of carving someone apart for the cybernetic pieces as he watched.


    They were all drek scavs, the lowest of the low. They were scavengers who kidnapped people right off the street and then harvested them for parts. It didn¡¯t matter if the person was even dead yet, they would go to work on them and let them bleed out on the table. Some of them even enjoyed the pain they inflicted on the people.


    Everything was up for grabs to the scavs.


    They specialized in everything related to cyberware, but they were just as willing to scavenge fleshware parts if they already had a buyer lined up.


    The job had looked too good to be true for the credits it was offering. He needed the money though, and so he had ignored that little voice that had told him there was something wrong with the job and taken it anyway.


    Now where had his desperation gotten him?


    In the middle of a scav den, with no backup and a bladder on the verge of failing him. His equipment, by which he meant his guns and armor, not the aforementioned pre-leaky bits, was subpar homemade scat. It had fallen off the back of a poor person¡¯s truck and then been dragged through the sewer before finding its way to him.


    Even the two augments he had were the cheapest that could be found on the market.


    Frankly, the drek in front of him had better augs than he did, and more of them to boot. It only went to show you that crime really did pay, especially in this day and age. At least until some Reaper came along and took them out. Reapers paid even somewhat decently for solid information on scav dens.


    If he managed to make it out of this situation alive, he would need to contact them later and see if they would pay him for the location of this one. A few extra credits were never a bad thing.


    Again, that was assuming he managed to survive and make it out.


    A fight was the absolute worst thing that could happen to him with his current equipment. However, he also didn¡¯t think his chances of sneaking back out were all that high. The only reason he hadn¡¯t been discovered yet was because they hadn¡¯t bothered looking in the direction of the mounds of trash since they had returned.


    He had dived into the middle of the pile of trash bags and loose filth as soon as he heard them coming back. It had been a close thing, but he had made it. He wasn¡¯t sure how long he would be able to remain in that spot though. The smell was cloying, as they apparently filled the bags with pieces of the dead, and he could feel needles poking his armor.


    The last thing he wanted was to get stabbed by some used needle in a scav den. The mere thought made him shake and want to vomit.


    As it was, he could only watch in stupefied horror as they butchered their latest victim. The muffled screams that slowly became blood-gurgling whimpers taking on a life of their own inside his mind.


    His body refused to move as he became an unwitting witness to their latest crime. This was the first time he had ever seen something so terrible in the first person, and he wasn¡¯t prepared for it.


    Sure, life in New Denver and the surrounding territories that made up the Mountain Collective was harsh. It was like that everywhere, or so he had been told. This though, what he had just seen was another level altogether. It terrified him. It wasn¡¯t about simply struggling for food or shelter; it was just being brutal for the sake of being brutal.


    It drove home something that people had always told him, but he had never quite gotten it until that moment. Scavs are sadists. They enjoyed the work they did. The creds and extra cyberware they get are just a bonus for them.


    If they found him, there was no hope for him. It didn¡¯t matter that he only had two bargain bin pieces of cyberware, they would still rip him apart. What was worse, they would do it while he was still conscious, while his mind was still active, while his eyes were still open.


    Just like they had done to that poor soul in front of him.


    The poor nameless bastard that he had done nothing to help. He hadn¡¯t tried. The gun on his hip was practically decoration by this point, not something that he had ever seriously used.


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    Everyone carried a weapon these days. If you didn¡¯t at least have a show of force minimum, then you were asking to get mugged. He could count on both hands the number of times he had been forced to draw it and on one hand, the number of times he had fired it. Two times and both were misses.


    There was a reason he preferred sneaking into places instead of going in, guns blazing. Well, there were a few reasons, actually. Ammo was expensive. Healing was expensive. His life, at least in his opinion, was expensive.


    When you snuck into a place, there was a lot less of a chance of being caught and then getting shot. At least that had been the case up till today.


    Now he had to make a choice, and he had no idea what to do.


    Did he make a stand here and hope for the best, or did he keep cowering among the filth and discarded remains of their past victims?


    Was there even a fraction of a hope that he could survive going up against twelve armed and much better-augmented scavs? What was his bottom line? He had already watched them tear into that person and done nothing. Was that really who he wanted to be? Did he want to stay afraid of everything and everyone for the rest of his life, or did he want to try and make a difference just this once and take out a scav den?


    He would never say he had aspired to be a reaper, but a Wraith¡­ that was a dream that had certainly appealed to him. Wraiths were different from reapers in that they didn¡¯t focus on simply killing. They were more broad in purpose; it was right there in the name. They were wraiths, shadows, the unseen. Assassins and thieves, people who worked in the shadows.


    They were what he had always aspired to be, but had always lacked the courage and credits to truly become. To do that sort of work, you needed a certain level of cyberware that he had never been able to afford. You also needed to be willing to put yourself in situations that were more dangerous than he had ever been willing to attempt.


    Closing his eyes, Trace ground his teeth. He barely held back his gag reflex as something cold and slimy from the bag above his head chose that moment to drip onto his lip. His hand inched slowly towards the gun in his hip holster, as he tried to desperately remember when the last time he had cleaned it was.


    No matter how hard he tried, he couldn¡¯t remember. Which meant it had been a long time ago. He just hoped it still functioned and wouldn¡¯t blow up in his hand. If he made it through this, then he promised himself he would start spending what little money he had to go to the shooting range more often. He would even take better care of his crappy gun.


    Everything that he should have already been doing but had been putting off. If he made it out, he would start doing it all. He silently promised to the steel goddess Meredith above.


    His single augmented eye didn¡¯t even have the functionality to link with the aiming reticle on guns. Not that his crappy gun had one of those anyway. Which meant he had to aim the old-fashioned way, using iron sights that may or may not be accurate.


    He was buried in a trash pile fifteen feet away from them. Hopefully, even he couldn¡¯t miss from that short of a distance. There was only one way to find out though, and despite himself, Trace still found his body hesitating, refusing to obey his commands. It was all he could do to pull it out and quietly rack the slide against his thigh.


    It was likely that he would have remained frozen in that state for the rest of the day if it hadn¡¯t been for the scavs finishing up. Most of the intestines went into a trash bag, similar to the ones strewn about him. It was then promptly tossed onto the pile with a nasty squelching noise.


    He was unable to hold back the gagging noise he made as it all pressed down on his head. It was a loud enough sound that they all heard it, and it was more than enough to make them turn toward the pile of trash. The gig was up. He either needed to act right then or become another nameless victim lost to time like so many others.


    Still, he hesitated, right up until one of them grabbed the bags from above his head. Then, he finally found the courage to open fire on them.


    The gun jerked in his hand as the smell of burning gunk and plastic wafted into the air.


    The scav released the trash bags as a look of shock came over his stupid-looking face. All the sounds in the room stopped as the other scavs turned to the fellow he had just shot. A bead of red bloomed out from his chest as he slowly toppled over backward. Blood continued to drip out and onto the floor as the man silently died.


    It was the first person that Trace had ever killed, and it wouldn¡¯t be the last. Not if he wanted to get out of the situation alive.


    The scavs finally reacted after several seconds of shock. None of them had expected to find someone in their operating room and then for one of their own to suddenly die. Regardless, they quickly shook off the shock and pulled out their various weapons.


    With his free hand, Trace began rearranging the trash bags on top of himself, burying his body deeper into the pile. The hand holding the gun he simply waved around and pulled the trigger. There was no way he could properly aim it from where he was, so he didn¡¯t even try.


    There had been four scavs in the room initially. One just leaning against the doorframe smoking something that put out toxic blue clouds. Two had been working on the body, and then there was the fellow who had been on trash duty.


    Well, that last one was already dead, but that still meant there were three more in the room he had to deal with. Once he made it through them, there were still another eight before he reached the door. That was assuming that he had seen all of them when they brought the body in earlier. If he hadn¡¯t and there were more¡­


    No, it didn¡¯t matter either way, because the chances of him surviving the next ten seconds, let alone that long, were infinitely slim.


    His bullets flew through the air, ricocheting randomly whenever they hit the edge of the table or the sloping corner of a light. There was a slight grunt of pain from one of the unqualified surgeons as he took a bounced round to the back of his butt. Every other shot missed, and within a few seconds, the dreaded sound of his magazine running dry rang out.


    The scav with a freshly offset butthole laughed and raised his automatic pistol to the trash pile. The other two were only a second behind him.


    Without even waiting for a signal to begin, all three of them opened fire at the same time.

 Chapter 2

    Trace had never felt worse in his entire life than he did in that moment. The copious amounts of flesh and organs inside the trash bags had soaked up most of the bullets for him. Most did not mean all. What was worse was that he now had to worry about all the unknown nastiness that was currently seeping into his body from his fresh holes.


    If you wanted HIV, Syphilis, AIDS, Scurvy, Cancer, tooth rot, hair loss, and toe fungus, well this was how you got them. By letting random blood and other crap mingle with your open wounds.


    He felt slightly delirious, but that could have just been the pain and shock talking to him. There was something about having a dozen holes put into you all at once that the body didn¡¯t really seem to like.


    The useless piece of scrap iron fell from his fingers as the bags were pulled off his body.


    There was so much blood covering him that the scavs couldn¡¯t even tell what was his, and what had come from the bags. They could see the holes in him readily enough though, and those apparently brought them great joy.


    With a loud roar, a giant auged-out beast of a scav burst into the room. He had two large revolvers, one clutched in each massive meaty fist. If there was ever a person who looked like they were on the verge of cyberphysosis was this giant metal twitching meatball.


    ¡°What happened?¡± He roared, as a few more scavs peaked into the room from behind him.


    ¡°There was a mouse hiding in our trash,¡± The newly minted she-male told him. At least, that was how Trace''s loopy mind was thinking of him. The dude did have two buttholes now. Who was to say what could happen?


    He blinked and forced his mind to refocus on what they were saying. He did not want to follow that train of thought down the rabbit hole. Bad things were at the bottom of that hole, gross, nasty, thong-wearing scav things that he didn¡¯t want to ever think about.


    Ugh, he needed to go on a date, but they cost money. That¡¯s what he needed, money, and then a date. Yeah, then those bad, nasty thoughts wouldn¡¯t come back to haunt him again.


    His focus had slipped again.


    A hand reached down and pulled him from the dripping, disgusting pile of refuse and gave him a firm shake.


    ¡°This is the mouse that killed Jeeker?¡± A wave of deathly breath washed him, coming from a mouth that hadn¡¯t seen a toothbrush in years. The giant¡¯s breath was so bad that any toothbrush within a mile radius probably ran and hid from him lest they become unwitting victims.


    ¡°You need a breath mint,¡± Tracer mumbled out around the blood inside his mouth. ¡°Don¡¯t know no Jeeker either. Is a stupid name though. I¡¯m sure he deserved to die with a name like that.¡± He felt his eyes go wide as his mouth ran away from him and began saying stuff he didn¡¯t intend to say.


    What was going on? He didn¡¯t understand. This had never happened before. Then again, he had never been shot full of holes either. Did the more holes you have somehow contribute to how odd you were? Because if that was the case, he felt as though it explained a lot of things when it came to females.


    He had made a discovery that all humanity should know about, unfortunately; it was on his deathbed. Wasn¡¯t that just his luck? No one would ever know the truth about women except for him now.


    The platter-sized hand roughly shook him, forcing him to refocus yet again.


    ¡°What did you say to me?¡± The smelly beast growled, drawing him in close.


    ¡°I said, you need a breath mint! You foul-breathed goat-sucking, Jeeker-loving, DREK INFUSED PIECE OF FUNGAL ROT!¡± By the time Trace was finished, he was actually yelling in the auged-out scavs face and had unconsciously drawn his knife.


    As one last act of defiance, he thrust the blade into the disease-ridden cavity of the man and up through the roof of his mouth.


    The razor-sharp ceramic-coated knife slipped into the man¡¯s brain and sliced into it with impunity. There was no worry about this idiot having a braincase. Those were high-end modifications that only the elite could afford.


    A shot to the head, or a knife, in this case, worked ninety-nine-point nine-eight percent of the time. The rest of the time they killed you right afterward and it no longer mattered. At least, that is what Trace had heard.


    It took a second for his locked-up cyberware arms to disengage and drop Trace to the ground. A second later, the auged-out behemoth toppled to the ground with a resounding thud.


    Being dropped like that brought a moment of clarity to Trace as he felt all the terror from before rushing back in. The loopy feeling he had been experiencing fled as he scrambled to his feet. He pushed the stunned scavs aside and bolted from the room, heading deeper into their den. A surge of adrenaline had pushed aside all of the pain from his many wounds. It wouldn¡¯t last long, but it would be enough to get him away from them if he was smart.


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    He wasn¡¯t though, since he had headed in the wrong direction.


    Trace slammed the door shut behind him and slid to the floor with a groan as he crawled to a desk covered in tech. It was a heavy-looking monstrosity that he hoped would stop a few bullets.


    He had enough holes in him already and didn¡¯t need any more.


    The door slamming shut broke the scavs from their stunned state, and as one, they raised their guns on the closed door. The shock of losing the big guy to a bleeding weakling had been much higher than they were willing to admit. Now it was time to obliterate him under the might of a thousand rounds of ammunition.


    Within seconds, the door and the wall around it had disintegrated and fallen to the floor under their concentrated onslaught.


    The desk held up well; actually, it held up remarkably well. The expensive tech sitting on top of it, however, not so much. All of it was turned into a sparking pile of scrap within seconds of him ducking underneath the desk.


    The constant impacts against the heavy desk did have the drawers slowly rolling open and revealing their contents to him though.


    And what wonderful things they contained as well.


    Scavs were a suspicious, always armed, and ready bunch. Apparently, that included even when sitting at the desk doing whatever. There were two different guns in the drawer closest to his head, along with boxes of ammunition for both. A heavy revolver, and a modified semi-auto that barely resembled the original product.


    In the drawer underneath it, he found a few stimulants and PlugDocs. A PlugDoc was a wonderful little lifesaving item that he really should have been carrying around already but hadn¡¯t been able to afford. What you did is you took one and pushed it into an existing wound, in his case one of many bullet holes. The PlugDoc would then expand to seal off the wound. Sometimes, more than one was necessary. A blood clotting agent would be released, along with some healing stims.


    It wasn¡¯t perfect, and it certainly didn¡¯t keep you from needing to go to the Mender or Doctor afterward either. However, it would, at least usually, keep you from dying.


    Grabbing a handful of them, along with a stimulant, Trace got to work. Hitting himself with the stim first, he began pushing the PlugDocs one by one, into the worst of his holes, slowing plugging himself back up. He had leaked a fair bit of blood during all of this and could feel the odd floaty effect that came with it.


    Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t have the time to deal with that sort of nonsense, as bullets continued to hit the desk. Each impact created a divot that slowly cracked and tore as more of them began hitting the same spots. His little hiding spot wouldn¡¯t be safe for long.


    Trace shook his head, desperately trying to get his eyes to focus as he grabbed the revolver and the box of ammunition for it. Each cartridge was the length of his thumb and almost as wide. He couldn¡¯t focus well enough to read the caliber, but they were behemoths for a handgun. The revolver only had room for four of the massive things.


    Just thinking about firing it was scary, as he could imagine the kickback on it.


    Ignoring the panicked grumblings of his mind, Trace jammed it into his holster. It didn¡¯t really fit, but at least it wouldn¡¯t fall out either.


    With that done, he put the box of ammunition back and grabbed the modified semi-auto. There was a fully loaded extended magazine beneath it that he grabbed as well. The ammunition for this one at least looked more normal. It was the gun that had been modified this time instead of what it fired.


    Not that it mattered. His crappy cyberware eyes couldn¡¯t even connect to the gun. Any other tech it possessed was likewise beyond his reach. It was a small miracle that it didn¡¯t have a cyber-handshake set up for its user. Anyone could use it.


    His augmented eyes were having trouble focusing due to the loss of pressure from his blood loss. Thankfully, the stims had his mind operating at a hundred percent, allowing him to keep functioning.


    Giving his head one last shake, Trace peeked his head around the corner of the desk and began to fire back at the scavs. He couldn¡¯t see them anymore than they could see him. However, he could see the occasional trail of dust from the destroyed wall.


    This group was being uncommonly cowardly and was hanging back. Instead of simply rushing into the room after him when they had the chance.


    Not that he was complaining, it was pretty much the only reason he was still alive at the moment.


    Trace cursed his low-end cyberware eyes. Whoever thought some of their functions should depend on the pressure from his blood was an idiot. If he survived this, he was taking the eyes from whoever had the most high-end pair among these idiots. Actually, he would probably do that for a lot of things.


    Their victims were already dead, after all.


    He doubted any of it was high end, but no matter what, it would be better than the bargain basement parts he was using at the moment. The scavs were likely using some of the better items, though they would need to be thoroughly cleaned before he had them installed.


    A bullet ricocheting off the side of the desk near the side of his head brought him back from la-la land. He had lost so much blood that it was almost impossible to keep his mind focused, even with a stimulant running through him.


    Without wasting any time, he began pulling the trigger on the semi-auto gun while his mind was still focused.


    He did try to aim when he could, putting the bullets in the same area as he saw dust trails coming from.


    If the pained grunts he heard coming from the other room were any indication, then he was being more successful than he had any right to be. It was apparently the last straw for the scavs as they burst into the room with him. The remaining few pieces of the door splintered and fell to the floor under their feet as they pushed through it and the weakened wall.


    This was the absolute dumbest thing they could have done at that moment.


    Trace had been having a hard time aiming with his unfocused eyes. Now, that was no longer an issue. All, or at least a large portion of the scavs, had come to him.


    Even better, they were unprotected and standing in the open while he was still protected by the heavy desk. Sure, the back part of it was damaged and filled with tears, where it was beginning to let bullets through. However, where he was in front of the drawers was plenty safe, as long as he didn¡¯t poke his head or butt out in the wrong direction.

 Chapter 3

    With all the scavs right there in the open, Trace barely even needed to aim. All he needed to do was pull the trigger and keep his head out of the way of the bullets coming his way.


    The extended twenty-round magazine for the semi-auto pistol was glorious. He only wished there had been two of them. It would take forever to reload. If that was something he was even capable of doing in his current state.


    Four more of the scavs met their end before the gun clicked empty. All told, he had taken out six of the twelve scavengers that he knew about. He was still praying that there weren¡¯t more of them.


    Trace was barely hanging on by the skin of his fleshware teeth.


    This entire situation had spiraled so far out of his control that he would have laughed at the poor, soon-to-be-dead bastard if it had been anyone else. But, no, this was his life, and he wasn¡¯t ready to die just yet.


    He pulled out the box of ammunition for the pistol and began woozily reloading the magazine. Bullets spilled across the floor as his shaky hands proved barely effective at the task of loading it. All he managed to get loaded were five rounds before he was forced to put it down and draw the revolver.


    This group of scavs might have been more cowardly than usual, but once they had been riled up, there was no going back for them. They simply pushed their dead to the side and kept pushing into the room.


    The main issue with using the massive revolver was that it required him to use both hands to fire. Or at least it did if he didn¡¯t want to break his wrists.


    That meant that instead of just having the gun and his peeking around the corner of the desk, most of his body would need to be exposed for each shot.


    Which is exactly what he did.


    Trace whipped the revolver into position, cocked the hammer, roughly aimed it at one of the scavs, and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked, jerking nearly a foot into the air from its original position and sending him onto his butt. His arms hurt, and the PlugDocs groaned against the unexpected impact.


    The arm, part of a torso, and several walls behind the scav he had been aiming at all vanished in a cloud of pink mist and concrete dust.


    Apparently, that was the last straw. Hearing the giant revolver roar and seeing that even the walls of the apartment couldn¡¯t protect them as they simply vanished in the aftermath was enough to break those that remained.


    A minute later, Trace was alone with all the bodies and a slowly mounting sense of disbelief that he had somehow survived.


    He was riddled with holes, and his aim had been absolutely terrible, and yet, he had somehow survived. It was a heady feeling and not something that he knew how to handle under the circumstances.


    The adrenaline running through his body at that moment was giving him the jitters. It was making his previously unsteady hands downright unbearable. It was all he could do to open the revolver and clumsily retrieve the spent cartridge. He slipped a new one in its place and closed it back up.


    He would need to keep the brass for this behemoth of a gun. If he could buy new ammunition for it, they would undoubtedly give him a discount if he brought in the spent casings. On the other hand, assuming he couldn¡¯t buy ammo for it, then he would need to learn how to reload it himself. Which would mean these casings would be even more precious.


    Regardless of how much his arms hurt after just firing it the one time, there was no way he was letting this thing go. It had scared all of them off and saved his butt. HE LOVED THIS REVOLVER!


    Trace spent the next few minutes picking up ammo off the floor and loading the magazine for the semi-automatic handgun. Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t have a holster for both guns. So, the revolver was shoved into the small courier pack he wore, along with both boxes of ammo and all the remaining stims.


    After that, it was time to finally get to work salvaging the apartment for some goodies. There was no telling when the scavs would come back, but judging by how quickly they had run away, he was comfortable with spending some time going through the place. Hopefully, he would find some more healing items.


    It took Trace several minutes to ransack the desk, finding the item he had originally come to find in the process. There were a lot of other semi-decent items in the other drawers as well, but the best finds were the two crypto-vault prisms. Some people used them to hide secure documents and the like, but their main purpose was to transfer money around.


    Everyone possessed a crypto-vault inside their NetConnect already where they could store their money. These prisms simply made certain transactions easier, plus not everyone liked having to connect their private system to another¡¯s simply to pay for something. The cost of paying to verify the handshake over the net, versus doing the transaction in person, was often the deciding factor for people.


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    Hopefully, he would be able to find the codes for them among the dead scavs, otherwise it would take forever to break into them. For the moment, he simply stuffed them into his pocket and moved on.


    His little courier bag had quickly reached maximum capacity, and there were still more items that he wanted to grab. More than that, he hadn¡¯t even fully gone through this one room, let alone the rest of the apartment.


    However, that didn¡¯t mean he was going to leave any of it behind. This was his one chance to make some money and get ahead in life, and he was not going to let it pass him by. He was going to scrape this place clean and take everything of any value. There wouldn¡¯t be a single screw left when he was done if he had a choice in the matter.


    With that in mind, Trace began moving everything that looked like it might have some resale value into the center of the room. He would worry about how to move it all later. For now, he just needed to gather it all.


    In the corner, he found what appeared to be a server rack of sorts. It had a bottom tray that was filled with data prisms and an oddly shaped unit that was serving as the central processor. It was an entirely black box that had the normal ports but had been extensively customized.


    There was no good reason that he could think of that a bunch of scavs could need a server like that. However, modifications nearly always meant money, so there was no way he was going to leave it behind. He¡¯d take the data prisms as well and go through them all later when he had time. Maybe there would be information he could use on them. If not, well, then he could simply erase them and use the prisms for something else.


    Either way, these items were all money to him and got moved into the center of the room with everything else.


    He hadn¡¯t looked for hidden caches yet, but he wasn¡¯t sure he was going to either. His body was really starting to flag. The loss of blood that he had been ignoring for the last several minutes was beginning to catch up with him again.


    Leaving the room with the desk behind, he moved back into the operating room. The bodies of all the scavs that had died were still on the floor where they had fallen. He nudged them to the side for the moment and began going through the supplies in the boxes and shelves.


    There had to be something that would help him with his little blood problem. Sure, these people were scavs, but they also needed to have a way to treat their own injuries. Those sorts of things didn¡¯t just miraculously disappear on their own. These sorts of people lived very dangerous lives because of how hated they were.


    In one of the boxes, he found a whole bunch of old-expired first-aid kits. Many of them had been opened and were missing various pieces, but there were still at least a dozen that were unopened. He didn¡¯t care that they were expired, and he doubted his body did either. It was medicine, stims, wraps, and a few other things. They either worked or they didn¡¯t.


    It wasn¡¯t like he had the money to buy any of those items new. Who was he to complain?


    Thankfully, he didn¡¯t need to open any of the unopened kits, as several of the opened ones still had blood-gels in them. Blood-gels were a delightful little item that activated the body¡¯s ability to produce blood and then supercharged it. Now, he just needed to find some liquid, or he would be supremely thirsty in just a few minutes.


    He shoved another couple of the blood-gels into his pocket and moved into another room in search of something to drink.


    Trash was everywhere, and the tiny kitchen -which was really just a sink and a fridge- was practically a crime scene in and of itself. Inside the fridge, after he brushed the bottles of alcohol aside, he finally found a couple of old bottles of suspicious-looking water. Not that he cared about its quality, he had drunk some pretty questionable quality water in his day. Everyone had.


    Pulling them both out, he twisted the top off the first and promptly began drinking it down. You needed to drink these things quickly, otherwise you would start to obsess about the murky color of the water and the odd smell that always seeped out when the cap came off. If you did that, then the water had a tendency to come back up.


    Clear, clean, and properly purified water was yet another thing that he had never been able to afford. He dreamed of one day being able to drink it and discovering what it tasted like, but that was a faraway dream.


    He ignored the film of gunk that coated his tongue, using a blood-covered fingernail to scrape it off. Ugh, he wished these scavs could have had something decent to drink in the fridge. Their choice of alcohol was barely better than paint-thinner, and the sodas that most of the population chose to drink weren¡¯t anywhere in sight.


    His stomach gurgled, as the water and the pieces of blood-gel still in there interacted with each other.


    As long as he didn¡¯t push himself too hard and dislodge any of the PlugDocs, then he would survive this mess. With that comforting thought urging him on, Trace made his way to the front door and locked it. He then promptly tipped the nearby shelf in front of it for a little extra added security.


    After picking the lock earlier, he had absolutely no faith that the door by itself would hold anyone back if they decided to come back. The shelf probably wouldn¡¯t help much either, but it would at least create a lot of noise as they forced it out of the way.


    In the first room were several large, wheeled crates. One was full of cyberware they had pulled from people previously, while a second was roughly half full, and a third only had a few loose pieces inside it. He removed those and put them in the second crate. With that done, he began wheeling the newly empty crate throughout the different rooms of the filthy apartment.


    Every data prism, gun, holster, piece of tech, ink-sheet, and unused drug that he could find went into the crate. He didn¡¯t use substances like that himself. Once again, he was too poor to afford such a habit. However, he knew plenty of people who would pay for them, and better they paid him, than some of the other shady types out there. It was a little scummy, but when you were on the verge of starving, your morals got a whole lot looser than they did when your belly was full.


    Trace ignored all the clothes in the place. You couldn¡¯t convince him that there weren¡¯t fleas and lice infesting this place. After his little swim through the trash pile earlier, he probably had them as well. Along with whatever bloodborne disease he might have managed to contract.

 Chapter 4

    By the time he was finished looting the place, he had managed to fill the rather large crate to the brim. There were over a dozen guns in it, along with all the various medical supplies that he had hurriedly washed. All the first-aid kits had been thrown in, and then there were several cartons of ammunition. Plus, everything that he had set in the middle of the back room.


    All told, he hadn¡¯t quite stripped the place down to its bones like he had originally planned. However, he was now realizing just how overambitious that plan had been. He hadn¡¯t even started to work on the bodies of the scavs yet.


    He had grabbed their weapons, but that was it. They still had the rest of their equipment, and he hadn¡¯t even gotten the chance to look at any of their augments.


    The thought of cutting them apart turned his stomach, and yet, he wanted their cyberware. Giving up on them when they were right there went against every scavenging bone in his body.


    He could maybe shove the big auged-out guy into the second crate. That would use pretty much all the space that was left though, not to mention that was even assuming he could lift the heavy POS. He wasn¡¯t exactly in prime condition at the moment, what with how many holes he had plugged up. The blood-gels were doing their thing, so he was feeling decidedly less lightheaded.


    Unfortunately, that also had the unfortunate side-effect of diluting the pain meds from the stimulant he had taken. Meaning everything was slowly becoming more painful the longer he stuck around.


    Taking the augments from the seven scav bodies was the last thing he needed to do. As soon as that was done, then he could worry about getting the crates out of here and everything else. Thankfully, he had managed to score a decent few credits from the crypto-vaults of the dead scavs. The vaults were protected when they were alive. However, as soon as someone died, most lost that protection.


    Only people who had authorized wills for their assets were any different. Needless to say, most people, scavs especially, did not have enough assets to warrant any sort of death will. It was a first come first get basis when most people died as a result.


    So, while none of the scavs had been individually loaded, together they had possessed a decent sum. More than enough for Trace to call for a transport van capable of carrying the crates when he eventually left.


    First though, he needed to figure out what to do about the cyberware still attached to the bodies. He could just leave it, but that felt wrong, and he didn¡¯t know enough about augments to pick and choose based on what they looked like from the outside.


    With a growl of frustration, he made up his mind. He wasn¡¯t interested in swapping out his arms or legs for anything these scavs were using. So, those parts could all stay here. What he did want was a better NetConnect and eyes. That meant the heads and a small portion of the neck needed to come with him.


    The big guy could be shoved in the crate as a whole, and all the heads could be stuffed on top of him. It wouldn¡¯t be pretty, but it would work for a few hours. He would just need to make sure everything made its way to a mender doc soon. It would have been better if he knew one he could trust, but that was life.


    Maybe one of the job brokers he used on the regular would know someone they considered trustworthy. That didn¡¯t mean he would consider them trustworthy, but it would at least be a starting point. With that decided, he grabbed the biggest knife he could find and got to work.


    It was¡­ beyond disgusting, and if he hadn¡¯t been so desperate, there was little doubt in his mind that he never would have gone this far.


    However, he was desperate. It cost money to live, to eat, to drink, and to improve. There was no such thing as a free lunch in this world. You had to work for everything that you received. All he was doing was his part to make sure he could keep on going for a little longer.


    Trace ended up leaving the auged-out body behind. It was simply too heavy for him to move. Instead, he added the head to the crate and did one last check of the messy apartment for anything he might have missed. He found his original crappy gun on the floor and picked it up, just in case. You never knew what people could trace you by, and he had already left enough DNA of himself scattered about the place.


    Using a portion of his newfound wealth, he called for a transport van. One that had enough room for all three crates. While he was waiting for it to arrive, he began the process of moving them into the elevator and down to the garage. There wasn¡¯t enough room in the elevator for all three of the crates, so he had to make several trips. He hid the crates in a dark corner of the garage and covered them with dirty blankets.


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    The trips in the elevator were filled with him sending messages to the three job brokers he knew. Including the one who had set him up with this joke of a job. Their information had been worthless, but maybe their mender would be a little bit more worthwhile.


    At least, that was the hope.


    The AI inside the transport van drove it to his current location and then let him take over. Loading up the three crates by himself was a painful and tiring experience, but he managed it after partially unloading each of the crates in turn. It was disgusting, annoying, and far more work than he had anticipated, but that was life.


    At least unloading them would be easier.


    He drove the van to his apartment first and brought the crate that was full of all the extra items up with him. The apartment wasn¡¯t the most secure location, but it was better than leaving it in the transport van for hours on end.


    By the time he was done doing all of that, the three job brokers had each gotten back to him with their preferred menders.


    His favorite job broker, an older man who went by the name ¡®Stick-Point¡¯, was the one with the best information. It was supposedly a name from his early days that he had come to regret making his official cyber name. Of course, sometimes you had no choice in the matter as names could get chosen for you if made a large enough splash without one already ready. That hadn¡¯t been the case for him back then. He had simply thought that Stick-Point sounded cool.


    Now, thirty or forty-something years later, the man wanted to smack his younger self every time someone said the name. But it was far too late to change it now. It was why he had told Trace to go with something simple that wouldn¡¯t be annoying if he had to listen to it for the next several years.


    ¡®Tune¡¯ might not be the most original of cyber names, but it also wouldn¡¯t be annoying.


    The man was the main reason Trace was still alive to this day. He had done more for him than any single other person he could think of. The jobs he had thrown his way were what had kept him alive more often than not. Though, his limited and extremely old cyberware had kept the old man from sending anything that was more than the bottom of the barrel job wise. It was a restriction that had chafed at them both, but there was nothing to be done about it.


    The old man was nice, but he wasn¡¯t about to pay for Trace to be augmented. He was still trying to run a business, and if word of that ever got out¡­ Well, it would be the end of him. And as for Trace, well, he certainly didn¡¯t have the credits to get the work done, not until that moment anyway.


    The information on the mender Stick-Point sent to him was far more complete than the other two. It was a full-blown dossier, including reviews from past clients and a list of upgrades that she had even done for Stick-Point over the years.


    That made the decision easier, and he didn¡¯t even bother giving the other options more than a cursory glance.


    He input the address to the mender clinic, put the transport van into drive, and made a call to their front desk. It was time to make sure he would be able to sell or trade them the parts he was carrying around. If he couldn¡¯t, then the other menders just might have to be considered again.


    ¡°Hello, this is Mender Sevorah¡¯s office. How may we cut you today?¡± A pleasant, if slightly robotic, voice answered the call on the second ring.


    ¡°Um, yeah, hi, Stick-Point recommended you to me. I¡¯ll be there in just a few minutes. I was hoping to get some work done and sell some goods to you at the same time.¡± He told the operator somewhat awkwardly.


    ¡°Hold for one minute please,¡± A blast of annoying muzak began to blare into his ears as he was suddenly put on hold.


    The line clicked, and the muzak disappeared. ¡°My assistant said you mentioned Stick-Point recommended you. Who is this?¡± A different, older female voice asked.


    ¡°This is Trace- I mean Tune.¡±


    She laughed. ¡°Ah, the old man has told me about you. Are you finally coming in for some upgrades, boy? Now what is this I hear about you having goods of your own to sell me?¡±


    Trace took a moment to give her the bare details of the situation.


    She was silent for a moment, before breaking out into a round of cursing that impressed him. ¡°Which gonk-brained job broker gave you this job?¡± She demanded.


    ¡°Err, it was Jonas the Slick,¡± He admitted, after a moment¡¯s hesitation.


    Her tirade of curses switched direction from the job broker to Trace within a heartbeat. ¡°You should have known better than to work for that shazbot! He¡¯s got scat for brains, and the quality of his work is terrible.¡±


    ¡°I know all of that, but I was desperate. I needed the money, or I wasn¡¯t going to be able to eat or drink anything this week. With my current mods, no one else had any jobs for me.¡±


    The truth about his situation shut her up real quick as he heard her sigh on the other end of the call. ¡°Fine, bring everything you¡¯ve got over here. I¡¯ll take a look at it all and see what is usable. No promises that I¡¯ll give you a good price on any of it though. Removing the parts is only the first step. The old user¡¯s information has to be wiped from each piece, along with any items that might hint at the less than legal origin of the cyberware.¡±


    He winced as she continued speaking. ¡°That sounds like even if you buy everything, I won¡¯t be getting a lot of credits.¡±


    ¡°Oh, no, you will. If the pieces are good. Just don¡¯t expect to walk away from this ready to buy a new car is all I¡¯m saying. There is a reason the scavs aren¡¯t rolling in credits, and this is it right here. Plus, whoever works with them always tends to take an even higher cut.¡±


    Trace nodded in understanding. He had never really thought about it before, but having her explain it to him like that made it all make sense.


    ¡°Alright, well, I¡¯m only a few minutes out. So, I¡¯ll see you in just a bit. I¡¯ll be in the black rented transport van.¡±


    ¡°Understood. I¡¯ll be waiting outside to help you bring everything inside when you arrive.¡± True to her word, an older woman in worn medical scrubs was waiting outside when he arrived. Standing beside her was a young girl with an entirely cyberware throat.


    No doubt she was the assistant who had answered the phones.

 Chapter 5

    ¡°Sevorah?¡± He asked as he opened the driver¡¯s doors and let one foot dangle out. At this point, he wasn¡¯t going to get out until she confirmed her identity. His body was really starting to hurt again, and the constant abuse he had been putting it through had loosened several of the PlugDocs.


    The blood coagulants were mostly doing their job, but there were still a few spots where he had started to bleed again. Not heavily, thankfully, but little trickles of blood around the edges of the PlugDocs could still be seen.


    The woman nodded, and a call came through to his NetConnect from the same number he had called earlier. ¡°It''s me,¡± The voice said when he answered the call. ¡°Now hurry up. You aren¡¯t looking so good at the moment.¡±


    The call disconnected as he climbed out of the van. ¡°I¡¯m not looking so good, because I¡¯m not feeling so good.¡± He pointed to one of the dozen holes he had patched up with the PlugDocs. ¡°As you can see, I seem to have sprung a few leaks.¡± A giggle burst from his lips as he stumbled forward. It was suddenly incredibly difficult for him to tell which way was up, and what gravity even was, as it felt like his body was about to float away.


    Distantly, he heard Sevorah curse. ¡°Quick, get him inside. His temperature is spiking. While I¡¯m taking care of him, bring his merchandise inside and make sure everything is cataloged. I want to see how much help he can actually afford before I go throwing something expensive his way.¡±


    ***


    Trace¡¯s mouth felt drier than the badlands of Old-Wyoming when he woke sometime later. His entire body was aching, and despite how dry his mouth was, he could tell his breath had turned rancid like something spoiled in there, come back to life only to eat something else that had already spoiled and die again. It was terrible, and the smell of his own mouth was making his eyes water.


    ¡°You¡¯re lucky to be alive, you know that, right?¡± The mender Sevorah told him from where she had been sitting in front of her desk. His moving around had quickly caught her attention.


    He grunted weakly, his mouth not having enough moisture in it to form words.


    The mender brought him over a bottle of soda for him to drink and sat beside the edge of the bed.


    ¡°We went through the contents of both crates and cataloged everything inside. I¡¯m sure it will come as no surprise to learn that the scavs had the best cyberware among everything you brought in. Though I do use that term lightly. Even their augments were mostly garbage, and several decades old. There was only one standout among them. I¡¯m sure you know which one I¡¯m talking about.¡±


    He nodded, swishing the mildly cold soda around his mouth, just letting the liquid soak into everything that was dry.


    ¡°The brute¡¯s eyes would be a very nice upgrade for you, and I already dug out the latest model NetConnect amongst the group. It¡¯s a generic no-name model, but the specs are decent, and blow your current models away. The difference between the two is similar to that of a newborn trying to fight an auged-out scav without being properly armed.¡±


    Trace winced. ¡°I didn¡¯t exactly plan on fighting any of them in the first place when I took the job. They were never supposed to come back to the apartment while I was there. The job broker¡¯s information was bad.¡± He finished petulantly. ¡°Tell me how bad the damage is. How much did you fixing me up cost me? Do I even have enough to get the eyes and NetConnect installed?¡±


    She ran a hand through her graying hair and sat back in exasperation. ¡°And that brings me back to what I said earlier. You are very lucky to be alive. Do you have any idea of the sort of contaminants you were covered in?¡±


    He shook his head.


    She rolled her eyes. ¡°Of course, you don¡¯t, otherwise you would have been taking industrial strength cleaner to your skin.¡±


    Glancing down, Trace noticed for the first time that he was no longer dressed in his own clothes but in a medical gown. From what little he could see, his body appeared to have been scrubbed clean. The skin on his arms and lower legs was a healthy pink and felt slightly raw.


    ¡°I take it you did that anyway?¡±


    Sevorah snorted and nodded. ¡°You had so much blood and other gunk on you, I wasn¡¯t going to touch you without cleaning you first. It¡¯s a good thing I did too. If you had gotten any of that inside you¡­¡± She waved a hand. ¡°Well, let¡¯s just say the remainder of your days would have been short and incredibly painful.¡±


    ¡°Uh, I¡¯m pretty sure, I did get some inside me while I was there?¡±


    ¡°Which is where your being lucky to be alive part comes into play. It seems as though none of it actually entered your system. You had enough holes in you at the time that everything was immediately washed back out. It took a lot of your blood to accomplish the task, but by the time you used the PlugDocs, the areas had been washed clean. You got supremely lucky on this one. That¡¯s all I can really say on the matter. I tested your blood three times just to make sure there were no infections or other blood-borne diseases. There was nothing.¡±


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    She stopped and then corrected herself. ¡°Well, I should say there was nothing new. You did have a few infections from before this job, and you had a nice little fever, of course. I ran you through the full course of antibiotics just to be safe, but you getting shot really did save your life in this instance.¡±


    He snorted at the irony of that statement. That wasn¡¯t generally how getting shot worked.


    ¡°Now, back to your original question. After scrubbing the IDs on all of the pieces you brought in, there is more than enough to fix you up and perform both installs. You¡¯ll even have a couple thousand credits left over. If there is a third item you want installed from the lot, I can probably do it and still call everything square.¡±


    Trace thought for a minute over everything that he had seen in the crates, before shaking his head. ¡°I¡¯m not interested in swapping out my arms and legs at the moment. All the internal replacement parts looked fairly old, or low-grade. I wouldn¡¯t say no to some sub-dermal synthweave though, if you have any?¡±


    She let out a bark of laughter at the request and shook her head. ¡°A thousand credits will only get you a little over a square inch of the low-grade sub-dermal synthweave. With what you have, I could maybe cover a portion of your heart. Trust me though, the low-grade stuff is not what you want when it comes to sub-dermal protection. If you do get hit, it tends to only cause more problems.¡±


    Trace let that sink in. After everything he had gone through, all the holes he had had suffered, this was still all he could afford. Two measly upgrades that he had brought in himself. He closed his eyes and let himself wallow in misery for a few seconds. That was all he allowed himself though. Unless he wanted to die, he needed to keep moving forward. Besides, he had always known new augments were expensive; it had just never been made so clear as in that moment is all.


    ¡°Can you add any sort of sensor suite to the eyes?¡± He asked after a moment. ¡°I want to be a wraith, not a reaper. At least that is the dream.¡± He told her shyly.


    ¡°A wraith, huh,¡± Sevorah looked him up and down before nodding. ¡°I suppose I can see that. Some might consider you too tall, but really at the peak of average, which is best, in my opinion. It will open a lot of doors for you in time¡­ If you can make it work for you.¡± She tapped a razor-sharp fingernail against the edge of the chair in thought. ¡°I tell you what I¡¯m going to do. I¡¯m not going to install the eyes you brought me. We¡¯ll sell those as well. Instead, I¡¯ll be putting in a pair I have in stock.¡±


    She held up a hand to stop Trace from saying anything when she saw his brows furrow and his mouth opening.


    ¡°Consider it a favor to Stick-Point. Despite how he acts, the old man is fond of you, and well, I¡¯m fond of him. I¡¯ll be taking the rest of your credits in partial payment, of course, and you¡¯ll still owe me the remaining balance, but I¡¯m fine with doing something like this for him.¡± Her cheeks had taken on a distinctive rosy hue by the time she finished speaking.


    It took an insane amount of self-control not to say something potentially stupid to her right then. The urge to poke fun of Stick-Point¡¯s bachelor status was real. However, while he might know the job broker well enough to do that, he didn¡¯t know her that well.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Was what he settled on instead. ¡°What kind of eyes are they, and what sort of remaining balance are we talking about here?¡±


    ¡°They are old mil-spec eyes, a few generations old at this point. That said, they will have a sensor suite, and some night-vision, infrared, and thermal capabilities, among other things. In other words, their specs are just higher than what you would have been getting otherwise. As for your remaining balance¡­¡± She winced and then sighed. ¡°I¡¯ll give you a discount on them. Let¡¯s call it an even forty-five thousand credits.¡±


    Trace gagged on his tongue and began to cough. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I thought you said forty-five thousand credits for a second there!¡±


    ¡°I did.¡±


    ¡°How much are these things normally?¡±


    ¡°Without the discount, they cost sixty thousand credits. Trust me, I¡¯m giving you a good deal here. I¡¯m doing the install for free, and everything.¡±


    He felt his poor wallet scream at him. That was more money than he had ever had at one time. It was likely more than he had ever possessed in total. Just when he was getting used to the idea of having a few thousand credits as a nice buffer when this was all over, they had up and vanished on him. All he was left with were the credits he had taken from the scavs, and what he would get paid when he turned in the job.


    It was still more money than he was used to, and by a lot, thanks to the scavs¡¯ generous donations, not the job. It just felt lacking suddenly.


    Still, if he wanted to move forward, and he did, then he needed that sensor suite.


    Trace gave her a firm nod. ¡°Do it, please. Upgrade my NetConnect to that model you mentioned before and then replace my eyes with these mil-spec ones.¡±


    He didn¡¯t mention anything about his future jobs or the repayment plan. There was no reason to scare her off now. If she knew that Stick-Point had never let him take any of the more dangerous or lucrative jobs, she might just cancel the upgrade. He hoped the old man would let him start taking a few of them now that he would have some better cyberware.


    Not to mention, he also had all the guns he had collected back at his apartment. He would need to go through those later and see which ones he could sell. If he was really lucky, then maybe he could even afford some regular body armor.


    Either way, with these two upgrades, and all those weapons, his days of struggling for every scrap he could get were over.


    The tides that governed his luck had finally begun to sway in a different direction for once.


    Sevorah prepped both of the replacement cyberware pieces while he watched. Sending them both through the disinfectant bath for a quick cleaning. She then hooked them up to her computer for a last round of updates and checks. Nothing would be put into his body until she was sure there were no viruses or other malicious code attached to it in any way.


    Once all of that was done, she spun on her chair and nodded once. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s put you under and get these installed. See you on the other side.¡±

 Chapter 6

    Trace¡¯s neck felt slightly stiff when he came to a while later. It was like he had been sleeping in the wrong position and there was a massive crick in it that he just couldn''t get rid of. Then there were his eyes. Even closed, there was a dry and gritty feeling to them, as though he had been up too long.


    With a groan of discomfort, he opened his eyelids and began to rapidly blink. The water from his tear ducts began to rapidly accumulate and coat his new eyes, hydrating the film of protective oil that had been placed on top of the lenses.


    Sevorah¡¯s assistant, the one he had never gotten the name of, was watching him closely as he blinked the dryness away. She looked to be a couple of years younger than him and was pretty cute in an odd, completely focused sort of way. Her glowing green eyes pulsed subtly as they ran through one of their built-in sensors. The dark purple hair she had let grow long in the front and then cut short in the back at an angle framed her face as she studied him.


    ¡°How are you feeling?¡± She asked at last. The same pleasant, though slightly robotic voice he had heard on the phone coming from her. The cyberware throat she possessed either hadn¡¯t been tuned properly or was just a little too low-end to properly mimic what her voice should have sounded like.


    He tried to crack his neck and failed. ¡°My neck hurts, and my eyes were super dry when I first woke, but those are getting better the more I blink.¡± Everything was clearer compared to his old eyes, the details more vivid. Even the most basic of eyes had reached a certain degree of clarity years ago, so the small increase was only to be expected. The big difference would be in the sensor suite and the other functions that the eyes came with. All of which were currently disabled.


    The girl nodded and turned to the computer on the desk. ¡°Very good. I will tell Sevorah about your neck. While we wait for her to come down, I will start the boot-up sequence for your NetConnect and all the additional functions for your eyes. Get ready, this can be slightly¡­ discombobulating for some people.¡±


    A second later, lines of text began to stream down the upper-left corner of his vision. He was able to quickly read a few items from the thousands of lines, cherry-picking words that popped out at him. It was enough to know that it was going through the boot-up sequence for all the additional functions in his eyes. Just as the girl had promised.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± He asked as the last of lines finished cycling through his vision.


    ¡°I¡¯ll tell you in a minute. For now, you might want to brace yourself.¡± She warned him. ¡°As I said, this will not be pleasant.¡±


    He glanced over at her and immediately began to regret not following her advice. As part of the startup sequence, his eyes began to go through each of their functions to ensure they were in working order. First, everything zoomed in by stages, and then rapidly went back to normal. After that, they went through the entire sensor-suite, activating each item in turn along with the various vision modes.


    He actually learned a fair bit about the capabilities of the eyes during the next couple of minutes. That¡¯s not to say that he didn¡¯t thoroughly hate the experience. The assistant was right. The entire experience was headache-inducing and had his stomach roiling by the time it was over. Still, it had been a valuable learning experience for him.


    Without it, he wouldn¡¯t have known the full extent of what his new eyes were capable of.


    ¡°You look a little green. Are you going to vomit?¡± The girl asked, a hint of playfulness entering her robotic voice.


    Trace flipped her off and took in a great heaving gasp of air to settle his stomach. ¡°You were right. That was definitely unpleasant. Informative, but unpleasant. What will the NetConnect be like?¡±


    She tilted her head. ¡°You really have never had any upgrades done, have you?¡±


    He shook his head.


    ¡°Hmm, well, it completed its boot-up cycle at the same time as your eyes and is now fully turned on. You should be connected to the net once more in just a second or two. Doc Sevorah made sure all of your old settings and information were transferred over as well.¡±


    As soon as she finished speaking, he noticed the familiar icons from his NetConnect beginning to litter the corner of his vision. He would need to play with the GUI for it later to rearrange everything to where he wanted. This new model came with more features than his old one and some of them would be useful to have right away. Others he could remove from his main vision and just go through the menu for.


    In the upper right corner of his eye next to the time, the mail icon lit up on both sides. One side was for regular messages of which he now had many, while the other side was for voicemail, of which he also now had several. Next to it, the phone icon began to blink, telling him that he had several missed calls.


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    He ignored all of those for the moment and navigated through the menu to pull up the specs on his new NetConnect. A long, low whistle came out of his lips when he saw them.


    ¡°If these are the specs of a generic no-name model NetConnect, then I would love to know what a proper brand name one looks like,¡± He muttered in awe.


    Sevorah hadn¡¯t been joking when she talked this piece up before. It really did blow his old one away. There was simply no comparison. Granted, he didn¡¯t use it for much, but that was mainly because his old one hadn¡¯t been able to support anything. With this one, he could actually run a few different programs. He would even maybe be able to experiment with programming. It was something he had always wanted to at least try.


    The way people talked about it made it sound mysterious, interesting, and powerful to him at times, depending on the speaker. With others, it sounded like the most boring, useless drudgery you could ever slap inside your brain. He wanted to see which it was, and if he was any good at it. If not, then no harm no foul, he would simply move on, but at least now he could do something about it.


    The assistant rolled her eyes. ¡°A brand name model from that generation would have roughly half again those specs. A decent increase, in other words. On the other hand, your model does come with an expansion slot for more universal memory. Something that most brand name models don¡¯t have.¡±


    He closed out of the menu and focused on her. ¡°Weren¡¯t you going to tell me your name once that bit of unpleasantness was over?¡±


    ¡°Ko,¡± She told him softly. ¡°My name is Devko, but I go by Ko.¡±


    ¡°Nice to meet you, Ko. My name is Trace, but I go by Tune whenever I¡¯m on a job.¡±


    ¡°Getting to know one another, are we?¡± Sevorah asked as she finally joined them. She scanned through Ko¡¯s notes and nodded her head. ¡°I expected the dryness with the eyes. They had been sitting in storage for a little while longer than I would have liked. I¡¯ll give you some eyedrops before you leave that have an oil film in them. They should help to rebuild anything that has been lost during their time in storage. After that, you will be fine. Now let me see your neck.¡±


    She stepped behind him before he could say anything and gripped the base of his head. ¡°The new NetConnect is just a little bit bigger than your old one. There will be some discomfort as your neck adjusts to the new size and additional weight. I made sure everything was properly supported and held in place though, so it won¡¯t be a problem if I do this.¡±


    Sevorah suddenly pulled his head up and twisted it like he had seen chiropractors do in the old videos. Trace opened his mouth to scream as the pressure built up, only for it to suddenly release with an eye-watering pop and an unconscious grunt on his part.


    Feeling at his neck, his hand traced the ports of the NetConnect and the slightly inflamed sutures from where she had cut him open. The stiffness was gone, but it almost felt like she was trying to tear his head off for a second there.


    ¡°That was a bit violent, but it certainly feels better now.¡±


    Sevorah smirked down at him. ¡°Better get used to it if you are going to keep getting more work done. The neck is easy enough to pop and satisfy, occasionally, but that feeling never goes away for some people. It only gets worse. Imagine your new arm, leg, or kidney feeling stiff right from the beginning.


    ¡°Then over time, that feeling shifts to one of irritation, like bugs are crawling beneath your skin. You have to scratch at whatever it is, but you can¡¯t satisfy the urge because it¡¯s all mental. It will only get worse until you try to remove the offending item yourself. Or have created a reason for it to stay, usually a violent one.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re talking about cyberpsychosis,¡± Trace said, clenching his fist.


    She nodded. ¡°It can start from something as innocent as this. From what we have been able to understand on the subject, it¡¯s all about how people see their body. You saw your original NetConnect as a part of yourself, probably because of how long you had it. For whatever reason, you were less attached to your eyes.


    ¡°Having it taken out and replaced has created a sense of dysphoria in you, of your body no longer being yours. That is what ultimately leads to cyberpsychosis. You should never have massive changes done before you are ready and always keep an eye on your mental state. It¡¯s your body. Only you can say what is and isn¡¯t part of it.¡±


    Trace frowned. ¡°I¡¯m not entirely sure how I can convince my body what is and isn¡¯t naturally part of it. Especially if it is already aching, but I think I understand what you are saying. It just takes mind over matter to a new level, is all.¡±


    Ko rubbed her metallic throat. ¡°That¡¯s true, but believe me, if you can get past the initial discomfort, it is certainly doable.¡±


    Sevorah stepped back and hit a button to the side that brought the bed he was lying on into a sitting position. ¡°Well, I think that just about finishes up everything here. If you would like to get changed, we can pull the curtain.¡±


    Trace looked down and noticed for the first time that he was mostly naked. He had been lying there talking to them in his -thankfully clean- boxers the entire time.


    ¡°Um, what happened to my clothes?¡± He asked nervously, suddenly feeling as naked as he actually was.


    ¡°I took the liberty of removing them when I patched you up the first time around. I¡¯m honestly surprised you didn¡¯t notice back then. They were covered in so much filth and grime that leaving them on you was out of the question. As it is, I had to run them through the cleaning cycle three times for them to actually become somewhat presentable. I would still suggest you burn them at the earliest opportunity, but you at least won¡¯t get an infection from wearing them home.¡±


    ¡°Thank you for everything, and yes please, if you could close the curtain?¡± He knew they had already seen everything since they had not only removed his clothes but also let him lay there in his boxers for the last few minutes.


    Still, he did have some small amount of self-respect, and that demanded he change clothes in private when possible.


    A few minutes later, he was on his way home in a taxi. Feeling better about life than he had in a while when a message came through that he had not been expecting.

 Chapter 7

    ¡®This is Ko. Sevorah was just going through the old logs on the NetConnect she installed on you. It seems like these Scavs were part of a larger cell, instead of just working alone like is normal. If any of them got away after getting a look at your face, you might want to be careful. Scavs don¡¯t typically go out for revenge, but they also don¡¯t generally work together. Just thought you should know.¡¯


    ¡®Thanks, I¡¯ll keep it in mind. A few escaped, but I don¡¯t think they were the ones who had seen my face. Hard to know for sure. I¡¯m sure they would be able to find me on the security cameras there if they tried.¡¯ He sent back after a moment.


    She was right. Generally, scavs went after people who were unarmed and had flashy looking cyberware. They didn¡¯t go after people with obvious combat ability or upgrades of that nature. It made it hard to judge whether or not they would come after him.


    As an unseen bonus, he now had Ko¡¯s information, and he hadn¡¯t even had to ask for it. The sly girl just finding a way to give it to him like that. He knew she had been into him.


    ***


    A short while later, he was sitting alone in his dingy apartment with the crate of items pulled up in front of his worn couch.


    Before he could open it up, a call from Jonas the Slick appeared on his HUD. Trace leaned back and let it ring for a few seconds before answering it.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± He asked, suddenly tired and regretting the decision to answer the call.


    ¡°Hey, is that any way to talk to the broker who helped you when you needed it?¡± A slick voice that made you want to punch the speaker asked.


    ¡°Jonas, your information was bad and nearly got me killed. The scav den wasn¡¯t empty outside of the two Virtual-Connect junkies like you promised. Your information was bad, and it nearly cost me my life! So, yeah, I¡¯m going to talk to you however I want at the moment. Now, what do you want?¡±


    ¡°Just calling to check in and see if you got the items is all.¡±


    Trace gave a humorless laugh. ¡°I hope that¡¯s a joke, Jonas, I really do. Which part of I almost died did you not understand?¡±


    Apparently, that was too much for the man, as he began running his mouth off and cursing at Trace.


    With a roll of his eyes, he hung up the call. That was one less payday. Luckily, he had taken all the money from the scavs that he had, or he would really be hurting at the loss. As it was, the amount he would have originally earned would have nearly covered his apartment¡¯s rent for the month.


    Now he had that covered in spades. For the moment at least, he could afford to not take jobs from a weasel like Jonas the Slick.


    Taking the items out of his courier bag, he set them to the side for the moment. He would look them over later and see what each contained. Right now, he was more interested in going through the crate.


    Popping the unsecured lid off, he began removing one item after another.


    The guns he set carefully on the table that he never actually ate at. The small useless microwave the apartment had come with was broken, and he didn¡¯t have a stove or the funds to buy real ingredients. It was cheaper to buy ¡®Food-in-a-Can¡¯ most of the time. Was it less satisfying, absolutely! Did it cost less while still supposedly giving you your daily needed caloric and vitamin intake? Well, the latter was debatable, but the former was a resounding yes.


    Regardless, it meant he wouldn¡¯t miss the sudden loss of space.


    *************************


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    The cartons of ammunition went on the table as well, along with all the loose rounds that he had found. Of which there had been many.


    The first aid kits he opened and then placed them underneath the table in plain view. He would go through them and combine them later until he only had whole and complete ones, if possible. The other medical supplies he placed on clean clothes behind the first aid kits. Some of those supplies would end up going into the kits as well after he thoroughly disinfected them all. He had left the worst of the items behind, but everything had been touched by the filthy scavs at some point.


    The crypto-vault prisms he placed to the side for later along with any other techie-looking items. That meant pretty much all of the hardware and data prisms he had taken from the server rack. There were a lot of random items that he had simply grabbed in the heat of the moment. However, there were some useful items, like the tools he had found in the back closet. The blood that covered them made him suspicious as to what they had been used for, but that wasn¡¯t his concern.


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    Finally, the only thing left in the crate was the black box they had been using as the main unit of the server. Lifting it out carefully, he began examining it with a care he hadn¡¯t been able to at the scav den.


    The short look he had managed to take there revealed all there really was to know about it. It had the normal ports on the back and was in a completely custom 3D-printed chassis. If he wanted to know more about it, he either needed to plug it in, or take it apart. Both presented their own difficulties.


    He wasn¡¯t sure he would be able to get it back together again if he took it apart. On the other hand, plugging in a computer that had been running scav programs just didn¡¯t sit well with him either. Even if he didn¡¯t plug it into the net, it might still have a wireless connection of some sort.


    Trace kicked the crate away and placed the server computer on the floor in front of him while he thought. It wasn¡¯t like he really needed to do anything with it, but he was curious as to why the scavs had been running a server¡­


    That thought brought him up short as he remembered Ko¡¯s message. The scavs had been part of a large cell network, not just working alone, as was normal. That meant the data prisms he had collected might be worth a whole lot more than he had originally thought. It also meant that he would be in a lot more danger from the scavs once they found out he had scraped the place clean.


    Something that he was sure they had discovered by now.


    His apartment should be relatively safe for the moment, but he would need to make plans to move sooner rather than later.


    It also meant that he couldn¡¯t risk plugging the custom server in until he had taken it apart first. Hopefully, it would still turn on afterward so he could sell it when the time came.


    Grabbing his new -to him- tools, he gave them each a quick cleaning to remove the crusted-on blood. Then, with plenty of cursing and a whack or two in specific spots, he set about opening the printed case. A task that was much harder than it should have been, but that he still accomplished in the end.


    The mangled remains of the black aluminum printed case were spread out in front of Trace, revealing something he had never expected to see. Someone had taken a braincase, an old one by the looks of it, and then converted the person¡¯s brain into working as a computer. Most of the odd shape had been due to it needing to hide the braincase. The rest had gone into the components that had made the conversion possible.


    Trace had heard of things like this, but they were beyond illegal. They were torture for the person inside the braincase, and the process had been known to completely remove and erase a person¡¯s identity before. It went beyond amnesia, as there was no chance of the memories ever returning.


    He found it hard to swallow past the thick, uncomfortable ball stuck in his throat as he began to carefully unhook the braincase from its prison. There was a port he hadn¡¯t noticed on the bottom that led to the nutrient port for the braincase. Checking the level, he found that it was about half-full. It was an amount that should last for anywhere from a few weeks to years, depending on the mixture they had given it.


    Once he had fully pulled the braincase free of the enclosure, he was able to get a closer look at it. It was old, like really old, that much he was sure of. Despite that, it was not a model he had ever seen before. It had no identifying markers that he could find on it anywhere. There was no serial number, corporation logo, or anything he could use to look up who might have made it.


    It was possible to do a general image search, but those had grown notoriously unreliable over the years.


    The braincase showed signs of old damage, and where it had been patched over in places with metal welds. There were other places on its surface where the metal had a sort of heated patina to it. It was as though there had once been dozens of small dents that were no longer there.


    That didn¡¯t make a lot of sense though. There were no marks of them being popped out from the outside. That meant someone would have had to hammer them out from the inside of the braincase. Needless to say, such an action would be a death sentence for the person inside.


    He supposed the case could be a refurbished model, but he had never heard of that being done with braincases before.


    Either way, it was an oddity, and nothing more at the moment. He needed some method of communicating with whoever was inside the braincase and determining if they were even sane first. Once he had decided on their mental condition, he would go from there.


    If they were too far gone, he would simply pull the plug. It would be a better death than the non-life they would have otherwise lived. Either way, he had been documenting everything since the first moment he saw the braincase. If he had to pull the plug on it, he would turn over the files to the police and let them handle the scavs. They might be useless for everything else, but this was one of the few things even they could be trusted to handle.


    The question of the moment was how was he supposed to communicate with a head?


    Trace looked around his small apartment, flipping open cupboards and old boxes, looking for anything that might spark an idea. He didn¡¯t have much that was actually worth anything, but he did collect a fair amount of old junk. One of the things he enjoyed doing was tinkering with older tech and trying to bring it back to life.


    It was partially why he wanted to try his hand at programming. There was only so much you could do on the hardware side of things if you couldn¡¯t fix the corrupted programming. Sure, you could simply replace the bad chip with a new one, but with some of the old items he had messed around with, that wasn¡¯t an option.


    Of course, he wasn¡¯t an idiot. Trace was smart enough to know that as soon as he got enough money, he would move away from older technology. It was what he played around with because of its availability, nothing more. If he could afford better items, then he would. There was no sentimental attachment to items from some older time.


    Shoved away, forgotten in the back of his closet, he found an old monitor alongside some speakers he had found ages ago. He had dreamed of turning them both into prime movie-watching items. Then he had fixed them and changed his mind. The color quality on the screen was horrendous, and the speakers had too much power in them. No matter what he tried, they kept ripping through the material connecting the old-school cones.

 Chapter 8

    Trace decided he could deal with the crappy sound, as long as he could actually hear the voice of the person inside the braincase. His opinion might change depending on what happened when he plugged in the speakers though. If all they did was scream at him, then those things would be quickly going back into the closet.


    It took some work to get the old monitor connected. He had to heavily modify the connector before he found the right combination needed to get it to work. Even when he did, the overall quality had taken a very noticeable hit.


    A few seconds after he had plugged in the monitor, a blinking line appeared in the top left corner of the screen.


    Trace blinked in surprise and leaned back. That was decidedly not what he was expecting to see. He soon found that wasn¡¯t the biggest surprise the odd braincase had been hiding.


    - Host in a comatose state due to catastrophic loss of oxygen and nutrient solution


    - Initial brain damage repaired repeatedly over the last 47,424 days


    - New damage suffered and repaired due to extenuating use conditions


    - Coma condition has been maintained for the safety of the host during this time


    - Apparent rescue conditions have been met by the individual identified as Trace Delevey


    - Beginning host wake process, please hold on


    Trace read everything on the screen three times before he finally cursed and began to laugh in surprise. The stupid thing had almost gotten him. If whoever had made the prank hadn¡¯t put such a ridiculous date in it, he might have even believed it.


    The braincase looked old but not one hundred and thirty years old. Still, it was an awfully advanced prank to put on something like this. It had known who he was. Granted, that wasn¡¯t hard to learn. His new NetConnect was probably broadcasting his identity or something. Which meant he had missed a transceiver of some sort when he examined the braincase earlier.


    Considering how custom and old the thing was, he supposed that was possible. Annoying, but possible.


    Still, a weird amount of effort to go through for a prank, and one that still told him nothing about the condition of the person inside.


    ¡°Fracking weird prank aside, I still need to find out how the person is doing before I decide what to do with this thing.¡± He muttered, his fingers beginning to tap on the floor in annoyance.


    The previous text vanished from the screen, only to be replaced by a new, even weirder command.


    - Requesting that the individual known as Trace Delevey press his finger into the nutrition mix hole of the braincase


    ¡°Ugh, no, that¡¯s unsanitary for whoever is in there. I think?¡± He wasn¡¯t actually sure. Now that he thought about it, that part of the port was exposed to the air, so it had to have some method of being cleaned.


    He reached for the hole and then pulled his hand back several times. Each time wondering why he was even considering doing this. It was a simple, strange prank message, nothing more. Yet, part of him wanted it to be something more. That was the part that kept trying to stick his finger in the hole. The other part was busy convincing him that some sort of finger-eating device was going to snatch his digit whole as soon as he did what had been asked of him.


    Still, eventually, his finger disappeared into the nutrient mix hole.


    The tip of a finger could be replaced or regrown fairly easily these days. It would be expensive, but depending on the method, it wasn¡¯t a permanent loss of fleshware either. It made the decision to take certain risks easier in the end.


    He felt a clamping pressure on his finger and the bottom of his stomach dropped through the floor. A trickle of blood made its way down to his palm before the pressure on his finger eased up and released it.


    In a rush, he pulled his finger back out and held it up to his eyes for inspection. It was still whole. The nutrient hole hadn¡¯t tried to eat his finger or cut it off. Instead, he now had a thick band of dark gray matter squirming about beneath his skin.


    As he watched, the band slowly diminished in size until it vanished entirely. All that remained was the general ache in his finger from having whatever it was injected and a slight reddening to the skin in that area. Outside of those two things, you would never know that anything weird had just happened to him.


    Trace backed away from the braincase and the slowly blinking line on the monitor. Suddenly, he wasn¡¯t so sure this was a prank anymore. The level of tech involved in doing what it had just done went beyond just some weirdo¡¯s apartment project.


    That had been corporation-level shizz pumped into his finger.


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    Which left only a few options that he could think of. Either he had really stepped into it big time on accident and gotten involved with some corporation''s secret scav project, which was a possibility simply because they were acting differently than normal. Or, he really had found some mysterious braincase from a hundred and thirty years ago.


    There were a couple of other options as well, but they were less likely and hardly worth considering.


    *************************


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    *************************


    Nothing happened for several long minutes until he felt a tickle begin at the back of his neck where his NetConnect was. The odd sensation continued to grow and climb up his brainstem until it reached his eyes. His brand-new eyes began to twitch and act in ways they generally weren¡¯t supposed to before calming down a few seconds later.


    Finally, the blinking line on the monitor changed to something new.


    - Connection to the individual known as Trace Delevey has been established


    The line of text was erased, and then the monitor went dark as it went into standby mode. The connection to the braincase had been turned off.


    In the corner of Trace¡¯s vision, a now familiar-looking, blinking line prompt appeared.


    - Trace Delevey has been tasked with protecting the host brain until consciousness has been reached. Is this mission agreeable? Reward will be a full body nanite scan, followed by all possible muscular and skeletal repairs.


    He glanced down at his finger in sudden understanding. That was what had been injected into him, nanites. He had heard about those, but they were considered lost tech. One of the steel goddess¡¯s projects that no one else was allowed to work on for some reason.


    ¡°Um, yeah, I¡¯ll do what I can to keep the braincase safe, I guess.¡± He agreed.


    It was an easy promise to make when he had no idea what might be coming for them. What he did know though, was that he needed to find some way to hide it.


    ¡°Wait,¡± He paused in a half-standing position. ¡°How long is it going to take to wake your host?¡±


    The line blinked a few times.


    - Unknown


    - Due to the length of the host¡¯s coma, the process will begin at a slow pace and ramp up as certain markers have been achieved.


    ¡°Well, that doesn¡¯t exactly work for me. I¡¯m not going to be guarding some braincase for the next fifty years just for that reward you promised me. Odds are I would be dead by then.¡± Trace finished standing and began gathering up his stuff.


    The now pointless monitor and unused speakers went into their previous box and then shoved back into the closet. At some point, he would need to go through the place and start throwing out all his old useless projects.


    Just because he had been able to fix some of the junk didn¡¯t mean anyone wanted to buy it. As far as he was concerned, a lot of the items had served their purpose as pieces of learning. It might be worth it to salvage a few of the rarer items from a few of them, but that was it.


    Maybe tomorrow¡­


    While he was putting those items away, the line of text in his vision had changed several times without him acknowledging it.


    The text began to grow in size as he continued to ignore it until he was forced to pay attention to it.


    - Individual Trace Delevey¡¯s concern has been noted


    - Alternatives are being generated


    - Trace Delevey has been registered as a user


    - First reward will begin to be administered tonight during the user¡¯s sleep state


    - User is to ensure that they have eaten a full meal beforehand as resources will be needed for repairs


    - User needs to deposit a source of metal in the stomach for additional nanite construction


    Trace groaned at the ridiculous demands. Now the tiny little robots were wanting him to eat metal as well.


    ¡°Is there a specific metal that you would prefer, or another method through which you could absorb it? Humans are not typically supposed to eat metal.¡±


    - Titanium is requested


    - At this time, the stomach is the only available distribution port


    - Another port may be constructed in the future


    He raised his brows at the casual mention of it adding some weird port to his body. Scratching his head, he looked around the apartment, looking at his tech and what it was made of.


    Titanium was expensive in large amounts. However, it had become somewhat common to use small amounts of it in many things. It was just a matter of telling whether or not he had any items like that.


    Well, he had been considering throwing out a lot of the old tech anyway. This gave him the perfect excuse to go through it all and scavenge the useful items before he did just that.


    Trace pushed the large empty crate he had taken from the scav den to the spot beside his door and got to work.


    Everything he had gotten from the scavs was pushed to the side and forgotten about for the moment. He had another project that had taken over his thoughts.


    One piece of old forgotten tech after another was placed in his lap and carefully dismantled. His nimble fingers and old tools worked well together as they went through the familiar dance. For each item, he would zoom in his new eyes, and check everything over. With the increased magnification, he could easily spot places where he had done bad solder jobs or had missed a broken diode or other item on the boards.


    It was informative, and incredibly useful information that would help him the next time he was fixing something. At the moment though, he was playing the destroyer.


    His pile of capacitors, EEPROMs, and more gradually grew as he went through each one. The only pile that didn¡¯t really grow was the one containing the titanium fragments. He had only found a few pieces of it, and it had all been lower grade as well. Nothing too exciting, in other words.


    Over the last two hours, the crate had filled up with junk and was close to overflowing.


    There was still more in the apartment, but it was past time to go to bed and he was exhausted. Trace quickly downed a bland sandwich from the vending machine in the hall, carefully swallowed each piece of metal with hefty swallows of soda, and then collapsed on his bed.


    It had been a very long day.


    The worst, and the best, he could remember having in many ways. The job itself had been an absolute joke. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong! At the same time, he had walked out of the place alive, and with more money than he had ever had before. Not to mention his new cyberware upgrades.


    There were also the promised rewards from the nanites. As far as he knew, those things weren¡¯t capable of lying. It had been an odd day, so who knew at this point?


    Of course, it hadn¡¯t been all good things. He supposedly had a group of scavs that might be coming after him now.


    Maybe everything would look different in the morning. He doubted it, but he could certainly hope.

 Chapter 9

    Trace awoke with a groan, his body popping and cracking repeatedly as he stretched out. Everything ached, reminding him how much he had pushed himself the day before.


    A blinking message was waiting for him in the corner of his vision as soon as he was coherent enough to read it.


    - Scan of the user¡¯s body completed


    - Energy reserves of nanites falling below acceptable levels, connecting to wireless energy source


    - Construction of additional nanites has begun (non-medical grade titanium found mixed with aluminum, steel, bronze, and other trace metals)


    - Repairs to skeletal bones have begun


    - Time Until Completion: Unknown due to lack of required materials for repairs


    - User¡¯s body has suffered significant damage to the skeletal and muscular framework from years of malnutrition and abuse.


    - More nutritious matter will be needed to perform the needed repairs.


    - Provide the various matter resources through the stomach receptacle as soon as possible


    He took a moment to take all of that in while he continued to stretch out. It wasn¡¯t really all that surprising he supposed to learn his body was in bad condition. When you were raised the way he had been, and could barely take care of yourself, was it any wonder that his body had suffered some of those effects?


    Still, he¡¯d do what he could to fix the issue now, he supposed. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll eat some more later when I head out.¡±


    - More metal is requested


    He raised a brow at that and then thought of what other items he had left in the apartment. Despite the crate being full, there were actually still plenty of items he could take apart. However, as he had discovered the night before, that wasn¡¯t exactly an efficient method.


    He would check prices on actual titanium while he was out, and swing by the junkyard and trash-heaps. Maybe he would get lucky and spot a few things that he knew had the metal in them. The new eyes had different sensors. He hadn¡¯t looked through them all just yet, but there might be one that would work for this. He doubted it would detect the metal itself. That would be too specialized for the military. But maybe he could set it to detect or scan for something else. Like an item that he knew would have it.


    He would need to go through the sensor-suite and see what all it was capable of before he got to the trash-heap or junkyard.


    Trace had a small hiding place under his bed where he had loosened some boards a year earlier. It was there that he hid the braincase after taking one last look at the nutrition mix level. It had gone down in the hours since he had last looked at it. The nanites were burning through the materials in it as they attempted to wake their host. That meant he would need to buy some more while he was out. It was a terrible hiding spot, and he was only now realizing it with his new eyes. Places like that were easily highlighted if a person had the right cyberware.


    He put the bed back on top of the loose boards and then began to gather up all the remaining tech from the apartment. Everything he could find went on top of his bed or fell off around the edges. It was a basic disguise, but if anyone looked into the room, all they would see was a storage area.


    With any luck, no one would come by while he was gone anyway, but it was better to be prepared in this instance.


    He found an old duffel bag while he was doing all of that and brought it to the table where all the guns were. The original plan had been to clean them up and then sell them. Now he was wondering if it was worth the trouble.


    He needed credits right now more than he wanted to waste the time cleaning them. Thanks to the nanites that had infested him, he now had to actually eat properly. Added to that was the need to find a new apartment.


    Yeah, spending the time to clean them had definitely fallen low on his list of priorities.


    The massive revolver was still in his courier bag, where it was going to stay. He was keeping that powerful monstrosity, no matter what. He didn¡¯t care how hard it would be to find rounds for it. That revolver was his ace in the hole.


    In the meantime, the semi-auto pistol with the extended magazine fit the old holster on his thigh just fine.


    That meant all the handguns automatically went into the duffel bag. At least that was the case until he came across one in decent condition with a few mods. He might not need to carry more than two, but it never hurt to have more at home. Besides, it would be a shame to simply sell all of this ammo.


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    He set that gun to the side and stripped the mods from a second one that looked like it had been left outside in an acid bath. There was no way he was going to make any decent money from the sale of these guns he was beginning to realize. It wouldn¡¯t have mattered in the slightest if he had taken the time to clean them.


    Trace took a moment to look at the rifles and sub-machine guns before shaking his head, selecting one of the rifles, and then sweeping the rest into the bulging bag. He had originally meant to get rid of some of the items from the crate by the door on this trip, but that just wasn¡¯t meant to be.


    He packed the items for Jonas the Slick into the courier bag as well, after going over each one carefully. The best he could figure out was that they contained information on the other scav dens that were part of the cell.


    If someone wanted to try to get rid of all those scavs, then that was fine with him.


    Strapping his courier bag on, he hefted up the duffel bag and left the apartment, making sure the door was locked securely behind him. The first stop was the gun shop, then some food. After that, he would meet up with Jonas the Slick. Finally, after all of that was done, he would head to the junkyard and trash-heap if needed. On the way home, he would buy some nutrition mix, assuming he had enough credits to afford anything at that point.


    The holes in his legs may have been patched up, but walking on them still made them ache. Unfortunately, the elevator wasn¡¯t working that morning. He was lucky that it had been working the day before, as it only seemed to function two days out of the week.


    The weight of the duffel bag seemed to grow the longer he carried it, and he was tempted to just dump it all into the abundant waste piles more than once. Trace hadn¡¯t realized that his body was in this bad of condition still until he left the apartment. He had been feeling fine ever since he got back from Sevorah¡¯s the day before.


    It was only now that he remembered the body took time to heal from surgeries and bullet wounds. She must have given him some good meds to keep him going like that without messing with his mind. At least, that is what he assumed happened.


    Maybe he had just overdone things later on and was now paying the price. That seemed less likely, though.


    He was certainly going to be overdoing things that day though, and he was not looking forward to how much everything was going to hurt later.


    The gun shop was thankfully only a few blocks away and hidden in the shadow of some nameless corporation¡¯s megastructure. The megastructures were a blight on humanity, but the corporations loved them. They had absolute control inside the giant buildings. Once you entered one, you were giving yourself over to their law, not whatever laws and rules the rest of the outside world followed.


    Megastructures were towering skyscrapers that could house more than fifty thousand people at a time. Considering how large their footprints were, that was probably a pretty conservative estimate. They had floors for everything you could think of, apartments, shopping, agriculture, R&D, and more. The giant things were practically bio-domes at this point. Self-contained ecologies where the inhabitants rarely seemed to interact with the rest of the world. Once you went in, you almost never came back out.


    Still, they served a purpose and kept a lot of people employed and housed that wouldn¡¯t be otherwise. He wanted to hate them more than he did, but couldn¡¯t for those simple reasons.


    The inside of the gun shop was brightly lit when he entered with his heavy bag. Turrets mounted to the ceiling automatically began to track him, waiting for an excuse to open fire.


    All the guns and ammo were on the other side of a bulletproof glass screen that was also protected by a steel cage on both sides. Despite that, there were obvious marks when idiots had taken their best shot at it. If the divots in the floor were anything to go by, they had definitely not succeeded.


    ¡°What can I help you with?¡± A large man asked from behind the glass. He had a secondary cyberware attachment that could be flipped down over his right eye.


    ¡°Uh, I have some guns I need to sell from a recent job. I was going to clean them first, but I¡¯m not exactly feeling one hundred percent right now.¡± Trace found himself telling the man more than he meant to.


    The big fellow wiped some grease from his hands with a nearby rag that had been placed there for that purpose and pointed to a pass-through chute. ¡°Load it up. Let¡¯s see what sort of drek we¡¯re dealing with here and then we can haggle.¡±


    A minute later, the duffel bag was empty, and the man had a thoroughly unimpressed look on his face. ¡°Scavs?¡±


    Trace nodded. ¡°They came back while I was in the middle of a different job. They weren¡¯t supposed to be there at all.¡±


    ¡°Figured as much. Scavs are the only ones who treat their guns this way.¡± He flipped the secondary augment down over his right eye and began to examine each of them in detail. ¡°Lots of grime; could have definitely used a cleaning. The inside of the barrel is showing some rust from where it looks like blood got inside. The rest of the internals are in pretty good shape though. A couple of these are complete write-offs, but I can still use their few good parts on the others.¡±


    He pulled back and flipped the augment back up. A meaty hand scratched the thin layer of stubble on the underside of his chin while he thought. ¡°They¡¯re not great, and I¡¯ll have to clean them, obviously, but there are also fifteen of them. What would you say to five hundred credits for the lot?¡±


    Trace hardly dared to breathe for a moment. That was more than he had dared to hope for, at the same time, it also meant he hadn¡¯t properly understood their worth. That was something he would need to fix before he sold something to anyone again.


    ¡°Six-fifty,¡± He returned after a moment¡¯s hesitation.


    ¡°Five-fifty.¡±


    ¡°Seven hundred.¡±


    ¡°Seven?¡± The big man blinked in confusion. ¡°That¡¯s not how this works. We¡¯re supposed to be working to meet somewhere in the middle.¡±


    ¡°I know. I¡¯ve just always wanted to go up in a negotiation and see how the other person reacts. Anyway, six-twenty-five.¡±


    The fellow shook his head in good humor. ¡°Fine, let¡¯s call it six-hundred deal?¡±


    ¡°Deal.¡±


    The credits were deposited into the account on his NetConnect a few moments later.


    Now it was time to spend everything he had just earned. Actually, would he have gotten more if he had promised to spend the money at the shop? Trace groaned and shook his head at forgetting to do something so simple.


    It was a rookie mistake and not one he had made in a long time. He didn¡¯t usually sell weapons though either, so the mistake was at least somewhat understandable. He was out of his depth here.


    The clerk returned from putting the guns in the back room. ¡°What else can I do for you?¡±

 Divergence Two

    The introduction of Nikola Tesla¡¯s Wardenclyffe Tower took the world by storm. Suddenly, a myriad of items people had never even thought about were available right at their ears, and soon at their doorstep. If you wanted to listen to a radio broadcast from across the world, it was possible, as long as they were using Tesla¡¯s technology. Wireless energy for the appliances in your house? Again, it was possible, as long as you were close enough to one of the towers that had begun to spring up.


    The final piece of the puzzle took slightly longer to develop.


    When he created the system, Nikola did so with the intent to transmit images already in mind. Still photographs from one screen to another. It was a task at which he succeeded, but that wasn¡¯t enough for people. They wanted images that moved locally first, and then ones that could be transmitted at a distance.


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    Each country and inventor approached the problem in a different manner. Some used electronic camera tubes, however, that method was quickly ruled out as only a small piece of light was seen at the end result. This did eventually lead to a breakthrough by a Hungarian engineer named Kalman Tihanyi with a ¡®Charge Storage¡¯ tube.


    However, he would be beaten to the punch by a man named Philo T. Farnsworth, who completed work on his own ¡®Image Dissector¡¯ system while in high school. The initial design was completed while he was still a junior in 1923. With the help of the local university, he was able to put together a working model by the time he graduated in 1924 that displayed three equal lines. Two years later, he produced a device that could display a full image.


    With that, it was official, Farnsworth had won the race.


    The RCA company adopted his designs into their products. However, only a short time later, it would be replaced by the Charge Storage tube that Kalman Tihanyi had created. By the year 1930, the name Philo T. Farnsworth was all but forgotten.


    He had won the race but lost the war.

 Chapter 10

    ¡°Yeah, I, uh, need some body armor. Nothing bulky, but it needs to be able to withstand light arms fire. Also, do you have any holsters for a larger revolver and ammunition in this caliber?¡± He placed down one of the massive revolver rounds.


    The clerk whistled in appreciation. ¡°A seven-hundred Magnum. I haven¡¯t seen one of those in a while.¡±


    Picking it up, Trace was indeed able to see a ¡®.700 Magnum¡¯ printed around the rim of the casing. With how shaky his eyes had been before, he had completely missed it, and the box had no markings on it.


    ¡°No wonder you want a larger revolver holster, if you have something capable of firing one of those.¡± The large man turned around and began looking through his inventory. ¡°I have three holsters here fitted for revolvers. I¡¯m not sure if any of them are big enough though.¡± He put them in the pass-through chute and let Trace try them out.


    It only took him a few moments to determine that all three were too small. The last one was close but was still too tight in the end.


    ¡°I¡¯ll keep my eyes open, but it¡¯ll be a matter of luck for something that size. Same for the ammo. I see some come through here occasionally, but not often.¡±


    It was disappointing, but ultimately understandable. They exchanged details so he could message Trace if something showed up.


    A few minutes later, he walked out of the store wearing a body armor vest. It was lightweight, with self-healing synthfibers, and had cost four hundred credits. It was enough to make him want to cry, but at least his chest and back were now better protected.


    Another fifty credits had gotten him a second extended magazine for the semi-auto on his hip.


    Both purchases hurt, but he was feeling better for them. He would need to practice his shooting at some point in the near future though, otherwise, word would quickly get around about how bad of a shot he was.


    Walking down the street, he sent a message to Jonas the Slick asking if he still wanted the items from the job. Trace really didn¡¯t want to deal with the man, but he also didn¡¯t want to gain a reputation for flaking on jobs. He doubted that would happen, especially if it were coming from someone like Jonas the Slick¡­ There was a certain mental component to it as well.


    He had completed the job; he needed to turn it in. Otherwise, it would be easier to not do so the next time, and then again, the time after that. Some things were a slippery slope, and for him, this was one of them. Not that he necessarily wanted the items, he just didn¡¯t want to deal with Jonas or life in general at the moment.


    Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t have the funds or ability to ignore jobs from job brokers that he didn¡¯t like or that were less than trustworthy. So, he needed to keep a tight leash on that side of himself, at least until he could tell them all to frack-off.


    May that day come soon.


    Jonas the Slick returned his message with his usual meeting spot and a time that had Trace jogging to meet it.


    The job broker was looking rather frazzled when Trace entered the restaurant. His tofu burger and seaweed fries had hardly been touched and looked to have been sitting there for a while.


    Trace slid onto the bench opposite the man, pulling his courier bag around to his front. ¡°We going to talk about you trying to get me killed or what?¡±


    The man glared at him and wiped his sweaty hands on the front of his usually impeccably kept if worn suit. This was the first time Trace had ever seen Jonas use it as a napkin, or for it to have creases in it.


    ¡°All jobs have risks, you know that.¡±


    ¡°And part of your job as intelligence gathering was ensuring that I would have a free window in which to operate. A timeframe that the scavs would be out of the den for the entire time I was in there!¡± Trace hissed back. ¡°Failing that, you should have had someone on overwatch to message me that they were returning. Was the pay for this job that low, or are you set on skimming that much from each one?¡±


    Jonas the Slick¡¯s face went red with anger as Trace hit a nerve with that last accusation.


    Trace scoffed. ¡°Really? Your broker fees aren¡¯t enough already, you have to skim even more off the top? How much from each job have you been taking? Thirty percent, forty percent, more?¡±


    Jonas¡¯ face continued to redden despite him not saying anything in his defense.


    ¡°Whatever, just pay me for the job, and I¡¯ll give you the items that were requested,¡± Trace said, suddenly tired of dealing with the man.


    A payment for three hundred credits, almost three times what he was expecting, suddenly entered his account. In disgust, Trace reached into his pack and retrieved the items for the job, placing them each on the table in turn. He wanted there to be no question that each item had been delivered.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    With that out of the way, he stalked out of the restaurant and began stomping his way toward the junkyard. Each thump of his booted feet jarring his recently healed legs, the pain giving him something else to focus on.


    By the time he had reached the junkyard, he had run through some of the sensor-suite functions in his eyes. There were a lot of them, and many of them depended on secondary items to function properly, as they weren¡¯t wholly independent sensors.


    The ¡®Smart Sensors¡¯, for instance, connected to anything he wore or used, such as the ammo counter or a targeting reticle on his guns. The ¡®Wearable Sensors¡¯ were meant to connect to his clothes and any other items with a diagnostic or sensor feature attached to it. At the moment, that only included his new armor vest.


    There was a host of other sensor features that he understood nothing about as well. However, the one he was most interested in was the ¡®Active Sensor¡¯ that had a ¡®Search and Rescue¡¯ function. It took some tweaking, but he was able to modify it to locate certain items by their shape. The best part was when he did that it automatically created a new entry in the menu for the item as ¡®Search and Rescue 2¡¯. Which left the original version completely unmodified.


    With this new setting, as soon as he entered the junkyard, he set it to scan for five items with recognizable shapes. Each one had the potential for differing amounts of titanium. Unfortunately, they also resembled several other items. He would need to find one of each item first and scan them specifically. Until then, there was a very large chance that he would keep coming across items that merely looked similar.


    The scan would record all the dimensions of the item and remove that possibility.


    The next hour was spent with him, going up and down the various rows of the junkyard. He couldn¡¯t run the scan constantly, otherwise he would drain the auxiliary-system functions too quickly. He had to be more judicious in its use, as the wireless charging modules in each of his cyberware augments could only do so much.


    One of the next modifications he needed to make was a dedicated wireless charging array. It was basically a glorified antenna that ran along the spine, or wherever else you wanted it. But it boosted the wireless energy that was being broadcasted everywhere and then let him direct it to specific augments more effectively.


    No matter what, it meant that during the next hour; he spent a lot of time picking up items and then throwing them back into the pile. Each one of them had matched one of the five vague descriptions he had fed the scanner before. None of them were quite right though.


    A few of them did have titanium, either as part of their shell or used inside them. Those pieces he kept to bring back to the apartment.


    Finally, he found one of the actual items he had been looking for and was able to scan it directly. After that, everything began to move quicker, as he now had a proper model of one of the items. Every time that particular item was found, it was highlighted in green for him, instead of the normal yellow.


    When he finished two hours later, the duffel bag had been filled to overflowing. He was not looking forward to the walk back to the apartment due to how much it weighed, either. However, he had managed to find and scan another of the five items he had originally set it to search for.


    Trace knew he still had to get some food, both for himself and the braincase, but at the moment, he wanted nothing more than to simply go back to the apartment. He was hot, sweaty, covered in grease and grime, and all his injuries hurt!


    Those stupid nanites had better make all of this effort worth it.


    At least buying from the junkyard was cheap, not as cheap as grabbing it from the trash heap. Still, it didn¡¯t bite into his funds too badly. He had more than enough credits left over to buy food and nutrient mix. The best part is he didn¡¯t even need to skimp on what sort of food he was going to buy for himself for once. That meant there wouldn¡¯t be endless lines of ¡®food-in-a-can¡¯ in his future. The things might be cheap, and filling, frack-it, they weren¡¯t even bad tasting most of the time. Still, he couldn¡¯t bring himself to trust them. He always felt a little off after drinking them for too many days in a row.


    Back at the apartment, he laid everything out on the table and made a couple of quick trips to the trash chute. The crate was looking much emptier after those trips, and while you weren¡¯t exactly supposed to dump loose trash down the chute, plenty of people did. At least his trash was still mostly self-contained. He pitied whoever had to clean up the loose boxes of takeout and other moldering remains down below.


    If there was even someone who had that job, for all he knew, they might just let it all pile up until it filled a truck bed and then haul it out. Actually, that made a certain amount of sense as well, now that he was thinking about it. Have a large compacting container down there and then simply swap them out whenever it gets too full.


    Shaking his head, Trace went back to the stack of new items he had just retrieved from the junkyard.


    A small smile lit up his face as he began to take them all apart. His old screwdriver whirring as the motor in it struggled to turn the seized screws. The soldering iron he had brought back from the dead with its terrible tip smoked more than usual as he removed one component after another.


    This was fun for him; it was cathartic in a way. It was something that he understood and enjoyed learning more about. There was something about it that just made sense to him in a way little else about life ever had. If he was lucky, maybe someday he would learn enough about how modern tech worked that it would actually be useful.


    He wouldn¡¯t be trying to repair any of these. They were strictly destined for the scrap heap and nothing more. He was collecting useful parts, and any titanium he found, that was it.


    Unlike the night before, the pile of titanium was much more respectable in size this time around when he finished. He had specifically chosen these pieces because of their high titanium content. High being relative in this case, as it was still less than a percent of each item¡¯s overall weight. It was frustrating and time-consuming, but that was where numbers came into play.


    Sure, it was a minuscule amount of titanium that he removed from each one. However, when there were forty of them, seventy¡­ then it became another story entirely. Of course, the pile also ballooned in size because of all the other metals attached to those pieces.


    He couldn¡¯t help it. The only way he knew to cleanly separate them was with heat, and he didn¡¯t have a forge.


    What he did have was soap and soda to clean them all with in preparation for being shoved down his throat later.

 Chapter 11

    Trace rolled off his bed with a groan. Everything hurt. He swore his bones felt sensitive, and his back utterly ached. You were supposed to wake up feeling better, not worse.


    It took several stretches, and body-cracking positions for him to start feeling better.


    He had managed to force down most of the pile of metal the night before, along with more food than he normally ate. His stomach had protested at being overly full, along with the small shards of metal he had carefully eaten.


    Now, he was regretting giving the little fracking robots so much material to work with.


    Just as expected, a new message was waiting for him in the corner of his vision when he looked for it.


    - Construction of additional nanites has begun (non-medical grade titanium found mixed with aluminum, steel, bronze, and other trace metals)


    - Repairs to skeletal bones have recommenced


    - Time Until Completion: Unknown ¨C Time Model to be exchanged for a more efficient percentage-based model


    - Skeletal System Repair (Percent Completed): 11%


    - Muscular System Repair (Percent Completed): 00%


    - Repairs have paused due to lack of required materials


    - More nutritious matter will be needed to perform the needed repairs.


    - Provide the various matter resources through the stomach receptacle as soon as possible


    He took in that percentage and cursed. Just how messed up were his bones? They had been working on him for two nights and only gotten to eleven percent! Was that a lot or a little? It felt like a small amount, but for all he knew, it could actually be an incredibly large amount.


    Shaking his head at his own ignorance, he retrieved the braincase from under his bed and set it on the table. It was time to refill the nutrient mix.


    ¡°Any signs of your host waking up yet?¡±


    - ¡­Negative


    - Effects from sustained, long-term coma are unexplored


    - Waking must be done in careful, controlled stages


    ¡°Right,¡± He sighed and went back to the task of filling the port full of nutrient mix. ¡°Alright, well, I¡¯m going to hide the braincase again and get back to doing my own thing. Let me know if your host wakes early or something.¡±


    The marker in the corner of his vision blinked a couple of times in acknowledgment and then faded from view.


    Trace managed to stuff a few more pieces of metal down his throat during breakfast. A can of soda provided copious amounts of lubrication as he forced it all down with a burrito.


    After that, he finished going through the various items in his apartment and tearing them apart. Just like before, he continued to gather useful components, while the rest of it went into the crate by the door. Unfortunately, these latest items didn¡¯t have any titanium in them, as he had already grabbed all of those pieces earlier.


    The box he was using to store the various components he was collecting was nowhere near full, but the bottom was now covered, at least.


    It was nearing lunchtime when he finished the last item. His apartment was looking much less cluttered with all the old tech removed and now in the crate waiting disposal. That would make it easier when he found a new place to move to. Which would hopefully be in the near future.


    With that goal in mind, he called Stick-Point, who answered right away.


    ¡°It took you long enough to call me boy! I was expecting this call the other night after you finished up with Sevorah.¡± Trace winced and turned down the volume on the call.


    ¡°Yeah, sorry about that. I wasn¡¯t exactly feeling myself for most of the night. Then yesterday I had to run a bunch of errands and talk to Jonas the Slick. You know how it goes.¡±


    ¡°Humph, I told you not to take any jobs from that loser, and now look what has happened. He doesn¡¯t even properly have someone watching out for his own clients.¡±


    Trace felt his eyes narrow. ¡°How do you know he didn¡¯t have someone on overwatch, Stick?¡± He growled. ¡°Are you the reason he looked so rough yesterday morning? Did you go and talk to him before I had a chance to?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Got a problem with it?¡±


    He gnashed his teeth in anger before finally finding something to say. ¡°You crossed a line Stick-Point! That could cost me respect with the other edgers if he talks in the coming days.¡±


    The other man guffawed. ¡°If anything, it would increase your respect to have someone like me being willing to step in like that for you. It doesn¡¯t matter, he won¡¯t talk. He never does. How do you think he stays in business? All of us know his secrets, and we keep warning you all away from him. Still, the desperate ones can¡¯t stay away.¡±


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    ¡°That¡¯s why I never see anyone respectable working with him,¡± He muttered after a moment. ¡°Wait, what does that mean about the job I did then? Is the client not interested in going after all the scav dens in the cell?¡±


    ¡°I doubt it. They probably just wanted the location information to sell it themselves. It was more than likely a job from an information broker looking to work on the cheap. It happens all the time.¡±


    ¡°Huh, well, that is slightly disappointing.¡± He stared up at the ceiling for a few moments in silence, simply processing what he had learned. ¡°Anyway, I called for two reasons. One was just to let you know I was still alive, and two to see if you had any work for me. I got some new gear from the scav den, and cyberware from Sevorah. I figure I might finally meet your requirements.¡±


    ¡°Hah, I know. She already sent me a message telling me what augments you got. Those eyes are quality pieces of work. The NetConnect is nothing special, but it¡¯ll get you started at least. I¡¯ll send you some details later, for a place to check out. I know you have been wanting to start programming. This place will have the modules you need at a reasonable price. Now let¡¯s see what jobs are available at the moment¡­¡±


    While the old man was making him wait, Trace began taking apart and cleaning each of the guns he had decided to keep. The revolver and the semi-auto on his hip were the only clean ones in the bunch.


    ¡°Ugh, this rifle is disgusting,¡± He muttered to himself as he was forced to use a pick to clear away some of the grime before he could even take it apart. ¡°Seriously, who lets blood get caked on that thick in the first place?¡±


    He was suddenly second-guessing each of the guns he had chosen to keep. Had all the rest been this bad, or was he just unlucky? He had thought he had been picking the guns in the best condition. Which, if that was actually true, he might want to avoid that gun shop for a while. That man would not be happy with him.


    ¡°You still thinking of becoming a wraith?¡± Stick-Point asked suddenly.


    ¡°Yeah, why? What¡¯s up?¡±


    ¡°Nothing, just wondering. I have a couple of jobs here that require a more delicate touch than my current crop of edgers can manage. The ones I would give these to are all on other assignments already, or out of touch. So, what do you say, want to try one?¡±


    Trace licked his suddenly dry lips, the rifle he had been cleaning forgotten on the table. ¡°Absolutely. Just tell me what the job is, and the preferred method, if any.¡±


    Wraiths were different from reapers and the other specializations that existed at the top echelons of edgers. He had always felt as though they had more freedom than the others in how they went about their work. Whether or not that was true, he didn¡¯t know, but it was what had originally drawn him to them.


    A wraith was a shadow, someone who snuck in and out of places while being virtually undetectable. Yet, that wasn¡¯t all they were. Yes, they were sneaks, but they were also assassins if the job called for it, thieves, information gathers, and even the occasional system breacher. They did a little bit of everything when the job called for it. The only stipulation was that it had to be done silently.


    ¡°I have two I think you can manage with your current augs. One is similar to what you just did, or at least the original job. You¡¯d be sneaking in and stealing some information from their computer. I would give you a special system breaching module you can use for the job. Extra credits could be earned by retrieving additional information or documents you find at the location. Use your own discretion on the matter. The other job is icework. You can choose the method on that one, as long as it¡¯s silent, and the target is put on ice, permanently.¡±


    Trace looked down at the rifle he had been working on, his fingers continuing to slowly pick at the grime. ¡°What¡¯s the pay like?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a seven hundred for the first job, but the target location is somewhat nice. The icework job is fifteen hundred flat; no sticky fingers.¡±


    He had nothing against icing someone. It was simply the way the world worked. If you got on someone¡¯s bad side, then this was the way it ended. It didn¡¯t matter if you were a corpo rat or a simple suit living their lives. No one these days valued lives, only credits. Humanity had lost the right to value their lives when they had attacked the goddess¡¯ child years before.


    ¡°Either is fine¡­ How about both, as long as the deadlines aren¡¯t too close together?¡± He said after a few moments of thought.


    ¡°That¡¯s doable. I would suggest doing the retrieval job first. Use the credits to outfit yourself for the second one and don¡¯t forget to save what you can. Sevorah told me how much you owed on those eyes.¡± He whistled in mock appreciation.


    ¡°She did give you a good price on them, but boy, did you ever let her take you for a ride. She has been trying to stick those things in someone for a while. Mil-spec-rated cyberware is different from your run-of-the-mill stuff. It needs special augments and tuning for it all to work properly. Or someone who still has all the plasticity in their connections. In other words, a young person like yourself, but it has to be someone who has never exchanged their cyberware.¡±


    ¡°Wait, so you mean, she experimented on me?¡± Trace asked, starting to get a little mad.


    ¡°No, not at all. She knew it would work. I¡¯m just saying, you happened to be the perfect subject for her to¡­ confirm what she already knew.¡±


    ¡°So what, these eyes wouldn¡¯t have worked normally for other people?¡±


    ¡°Not without the additional tuning and special augments to control everything, no. Just be careful with them. They are powerful and usually controlled by more than just the brain.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, sounds like I should make her pay me then. Ugh, whatever, I¡¯ll be careful. Send me the information on both jobs and a location on where to pick up the module. I have to get back to cleaning these guns. I¡¯ll talk to you later.¡±


    ¡°Yup, already done.¡± The line went dead, and a second later, he received a message with all the details on both jobs.


    He looked over the specifics while he finished cleaning the guns. Giving each of them a good scrubbing, followed by oil on the needed parts.


    For him, these two jobs paid a lot. However, in reality, they were bottom of the barrel in regard to pay for both. That meant Stick-Point was hopefully starting him out on some easy jobs. He would need to think about how he wanted to ice the target. Did he want to get up close and personal, or try his hand at a long-range shot?


    Shooting would be best, but his accuracy was terrible. Then again, his new eyes were capable of integrating with the sights of a gun. He didn¡¯t know how much that would help, but it was something worth exploring.


    Right now, he needed to concentrate on how he was going to sneak into the apartment for the retrieval job. Stick-Point hadn¡¯t been kidding when he said the location was somewhat nice. Although, in his opinion, you could remove the ¡®somewhat¡¯ entirely.


    The apartment was on the ninth floor of a thirty-floor building. With the lower twenty floors all dedicated to housing, and the upper ten to various businesses. That meant it was a pretty nice place to live. The businesses operating out of the building would ensure that was the case. After all, they had an image to maintain, and dirty apartments that anyone could afford just wouldn¡¯t do them any favors.

 Chapter 12

    Trace was standing on the bottom floor of the target¡¯s apartment building, waiting for them to leave so he could begin. The system breaching module had been picked up without a problem, and a basic plan had been made. By which he meant that he had decided to just enter through the front door.


    The security of the building was relatively impressive, but only if it was tripped. As long as he didn¡¯t manage to do that when he was opening the door, then he would be fine. And if there was one thing Trace knew how to do, it was open doors. He had been doing it for a long time without the help of a NetConnect to back him up.


    Tripping the locks was almost as easy as breathing for him at this point. Granted, he had rarely had to worry about building alarms in the places he was entering. The locks were also usually a little on the older side¡­


    Suddenly, Trace found himself sweating as he began to imagine all the different things that could go wrong with his simplistic plan.


    Why did he think he could do this? He wasn¡¯t equipped to handle something like this. All of his experience in popping locks was in older buildings where everything was so out of date a baby could break into most of the places with minimal difficulty.


    In the midst of his panicked thoughts, he saw the target leaving the elevator and knew he was on. It was time to act. He either needed to bail on the job, or head toward the elevator and head on up.


    Despite himself, he found himself waiting until the target had fully left the building before walking toward the elevator. Stick-Point had believed he could do this job, and he was going to do his best to prove the old man¡¯s faith in him was warranted. This was the first proper job he had given him, not some half-bit scrap that no proper edger would take.


    He needed to prove himself with this job. Both of these jobs.


    At least the nanites were doing their thing. He could no longer feel the weight of the metal in his stomach. That was something, and it had been a little uncomfortable.


    Trace kept his mind occupied with meaningless thoughts as he rode the elevator to the ninth floor. His duffel bag was pressed flat and stuffed inside his courier bag for later, leaving his hands free. He didn¡¯t want to be seen carrying the extra bag, just in case, and he wasn¡¯t worried about the gun. It would be stranger not to carry one openly.


    The ninth floor was decently upscale to his street-rat sensibilities. That said, the sensor suite in his eyes automatically told him that the domes in the ceiling were empty. Each one that was meant to look like a camera was simply an empty housing.


    He had learned about this feature the other day when he was familiarizing himself with what they could do. They also had a minor facial blurring ability, but he wasn¡¯t sure how much that could be trusted. The tech was several generations old after all, but there was also the counterargument that it was a mil-spec ability. That could mean it was still better than the average stuff on the market or was absolute bargain basement trash even when it first rolled out.


    No one had told him the actual make and model of his eyes, and the information screen was suspiciously lacking. It made it hard to do his own research on the subject.


    Regardless, the lack of cameras was good news for him, as it meant he didn¡¯t need to worry about being watched.


    He found the target¡¯s door and walked up to it, after a quick scan of the hallway to make sure there really were no cameras. With that worry settled, he went to work.


    Popping the cover off the encrypted lock receiver, he exposed the secondary access point. These locks were meant to be opened through an automatic encrypted handshake to the owner¡¯s NetConnect. However, there was a secondary slot on these that most people seemed to forget about in case there was a power outage.


    These sorts of locks were even easier to open than some of the more high-tech but low-end models, like what was fitted in his current apartment.


    A simple set of lock picks and some know-how and anyone could gain access to this person¡¯s apartment.


    Sure enough, a minute later he was inside, and the cover was back in place on the lock. No one would ever know he had gotten in that way. Honestly, he shouldn''t have been panicking. Stick-Point wouldn¡¯t give him a job he couldn¡¯t accomplish. Other job brokers might do that, but not him.


    Inside the apartment, he stopped in the entryway and looked around. No cameras lit up automatically. However, he was feeling cautious. Connecting to his NetConnect, his eyes pulsed a single time, sending out an active signal that searched for everything connected to the net in the apartment.


    The normal scan merely saw the cameras that were connected to the main network of the building. There was so much data flowing through it that it was easy for them to identify connections, if not gain access.


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    The active scan, however, looked for private or closed networks and data connections with little information being passed through them. One worked great in the commercial spaces. The other worked better in residential or security-conscious people.


    Which apparently this person was.


    Almost immediately, he picked up five different cameras inside the house. Trace waited for their locations to be highlighted in his eyes and then shook his head.


    Never mind. The target was simply a pervert. Three of the cameras were in the bedroom, while the other two were in the bathroom. At least now he knew which rooms to avoid while he looted the place. There was no guilt involved with weird perverts, not that there would have been any guilt anyway.


    Feeling safer with the knowledge that there were no cameras around, he sped through the rooms in search of the computer.


    He was glad there was a clause on this job about stealing from the target. While none of the items he was seeing were particularly high-end looking, there were a lot of them. There was enough here to fill his duffel bag several times over. If he chose the right items to take away and bring to the pawnshop, though, then he might walk away from this job with another hundred, maybe even one-fifty in credits.


    How life had changed in such a short amount of time.


    It was no wonder Stick-Point had kept telling him to save up and get new cyberware. If this was the sort of money he could expect to walk away with on the lowest-tiered job, then his days of fighting the rats for food were over.


    First though, he had to find the computer.


    The room that was set up as an office had a desk and a very nice screen attached to it. However, he couldn¡¯t find a computer anywhere in the room.


    It was only after running another active network scan that he saw the data from the five cameras going into the desk. He wasn¡¯t able to find a computer in the place because his poor, cheap mind couldn¡¯t fathom something as custom as an entire desk being turned into a computer. The cost for something like that would have been nearly as much as his new eyes.


    Suddenly, he knew what it was he wanted to steal in the place, even if he knew it wasn¡¯t possible at the moment. Maybe at some point in the future, if he remembered, he would come back for it.


    Regardless, at the moment, he needed to retrieve the requested information from it. Then he could take a proper look around for additional information and documents for the bonus credits. If he could disable the cameras, then he would enter the bedroom, otherwise, that room would remain off-limits as far as he was concerned.


    It didn¡¯t matter if all the extra information was in there. No good wraith would let themselves be caught on their target¡¯s camera.


    Trace pulled out the system breaching module and plugged it into one of the ports in his neck. Next, he pulled out a connecting cable. The end going into his neck port had already been sanitized and gelled by him earlier in preparation for this. Supposedly, you didn¡¯t need to keep your neck ports super clean, but if there was ever a part of yourself to keep clean, that was it.


    On his main HUD, a new icon appeared for the system breaching module. His NetConnect had taken a moment to scan it for malicious code, before allowing him access to it. If the need had arisen and he had been desperate, he could have overridden that setting. However, he obviously would have been opening his NetConnect to danger if he had done that.


    As it was, he was running the system breaching module in a virtual sandboxed environment. That meant it had no access to anything but what he allowed it to. As far as that module was concerned, his NetConnect was a blank slate. All it consisted of was an environment to run the module and the three ports he had given it access to. Two of which it required to run. That was it.


    Trace¡¯s old NetConnect hadn¡¯t been capable of doing something like this, but this model had the feature built in.


    He activated the module, letting the program run as he connected the cable to the port he found behind a sliding plate on the side. It was slick, and despite not having a use for the computer, he still wanted it.


    The screen lit up as the system breaching module went to work. All he could do was stand there and wait while he waited for it to work. Thankfully, it didn¡¯t take long, and two minutes later the computer was unlocked, and its encryption broken. Everything contained on its silica drives was now open to him.


    Trace slid an unused data prism into an open slot on his neck and began copying over everything on the drive. Most NetConnects came with four usable connections, though there were some models that had more or less. They were generally specialized models built around specific uses and not for the average consumer.


    He felt the port beginning to heat up as a large amount of data began transferring over. He would go through it all later. Right now, he just wanted to get what he could. The pervert¡¯s little home movies would be the first thing he purged when he got the chance later.


    Now that he was inside the computer, he was able to find the settings for the cameras easily enough and turn them off. Now, as soon as the transfer finished, he would be able to go through the man¡¯s bedroom.


    Trace waited impatiently for the transfer to finish. There were so many files that it was taking a while. He had been standing there for close to five minutes when he noticed that the cameras had all come back online at some point.


    The bottom of his stomach fell out as a sense of unease began to grow inside him. He had screwed up by disabling them so early. There must have been an alert sent out when they were disabled that he hadn¡¯t noticed.


    Why would he? Trace had just barely upgraded from baby¡¯s first NetConnect a couple of days earlier. He still had no idea how any of these things worked.


    That was something he would need to fix after he completed this job. Stick-Point had said he knew where Trace could buy learning modules, well getting some had just taken a large step up in priority.


    Missing that alert was somewhat forgivable due to his ignorance. However, turning the cameras off so early had just been stupid. Now the pervert knew someone was in his apartment and was likely on his way back already.


    He watched, his leg bumping repeatedly against the table, as the last few files were transferred over and shut down the computer. Only then did he pull out the cable and the data prism, shoving them both into his courier bag where they would be safe.


    Hurrying from the office, he began snatching up anything that looked worthwhile, and stuffing it into the duffel bag. As long as it looked expensive, it went inside. He had never seen anything lying about that looked like useful documents. Hopefully, there would be more on the files he had taken.

 Chapter 13

    Trace hurried to the front door and stopped to listen. He doubted it had been long enough for the target to make it back to the apartment. That said, it would have been easy enough for him to call someone and notify them of the break-in.


    Leaning his head against the door, he activated the search and rescue(S&R) sensor. The original version, not the one he had modified. By pressing his eyes right against the door, he was hoping that whatever signal it used would go through it.


    Which it did. Then he noticed it also went through the closed doors of the rooms in the apartment behind him and felt like an idiot. Of course, the signal would travel through solid objects, to a limited degree at least. He should have realized that before. How else would it have been able to see the inside of objects at the junkyard? Not all of them had openings for a signal or wavelength or whatever it was using to enter through.


    Of more immediate concern, he noted that there were four armed people who had taken up positions outside the door.


    As quietly as he could, he flipped the deadbolt into position and then jammed a chair against the handle. He wouldn¡¯t be getting out that way, but they also wouldn¡¯t be getting in, at least not quickly.


    Backing away from the door, he spun around and hurried to the large, floor-length window he had seen in the main room earlier. He vaguely remembered seeing a small balcony connected to it. Nearly all apartments above the fifth floor had a balcony of some kind for emergency services to use. However, just because it was there didn¡¯t mean it was open to the inhabitant''s use. Some places locked them down to only emergency services, while others would include it as an add-on fee.


    Anything for more money.


    It was time to find out what sort of place this was. Locked down, free use, or potential addon, to the existing apartment package.


    Trace hit the button beside the glass window, and a moment later, they silently rolled open. Either they were free to use, or the target had previously paid to upgrade his apartment package. He was really hoping it was the first option, otherwise, this would turn bad really quickly.


    He carried the duffel bag onto the balcony with him and hit the button to close the window behind him. Before he could think twice, he tossed the bag over onto the balcony closest to him and jumped over onto it. That worked to get him out of one apartment, but now he was in someone else¡¯s.


    Trace activated the S&R sensor scan while he lay motionless on the balcony. He didn¡¯t really want to bust into someone else¡¯s apartment while they were still in it, not that he truly had a choice in the matter. The next balcony was too far to jump to. The way they had designed them was that every two balconies would be close together. It created a staggered layout, so the floor below could then use the extra airspace it provided for their two balconies.


    It wasn¡¯t perfect, but it was what they had come up with and was the widely adopted format everywhere.


    It also meant that as soon as they realized that the apartment was empty, they would know where Trace had gone. So, he needed to keep moving.


    The scan came back negative, and he rolled to his knees and hit the button by the window, only for it to flash red at him. Well, that answered that question for certain, then. They were a paid addon, and the neighbor hadn¡¯t wanted to pay.


    That left Trace with two, well, three options, but he didn¡¯t like the last option. He could go back to the target¡¯s apartment; he could jump down to one of the small balconies on the floor below. Or he could try to break the very thick glass on the window.


    Actually, never mind, he didn¡¯t like any of those options. They all sucked!


    He wasn¡¯t going back, that was for sure, and trying to break the glass was also out. They were built to resist that sort of thing. There was no access port that he could see either for if he wanted to try his hand at jacking in and breaching the door¡¯s security. A skill he didn¡¯t normally have. However, he did have the system breaching module still plugged into his neck. It would have been worth a try if he could have found a port.


    That really left him with only one option, and it was one that made his stomach tremble and knees weak just thinking about it. He needed to jump down to the next tiny balcony. Each balcony only stuck out a couple of feet. Meaning it would be easier for him to miss than it would be to actually hit it properly.


    Not to mention the drop involved.


    He couldn¡¯t simply hang from the edge of his current balcony and swing over to it while dropping. No, he would need to jump for it, as it was at least six feet away, and a floor down. No matter how he looked at it. What he was about to do next was stupid, foolhardy, dangerous, and unfortunately, necessary. It was also going to hurt.


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    His hands shook as he tossed the duffel bag down to the balcony below. The bag jumped and skittered across the surface, getting uncomfortably close to the edge before stopping.


    Trace breathed out and wiped the cold sweat that had formed on his brow as he went for it. If he waited too long, then he would talk himself out of doing what needed to be done, and he didn¡¯t have that sort of time. Someone would be entering the target''s apartment at any moment if they hadn¡¯t already.


    His legs trembled as he jumped out into the space above the next balcony and then dropped with a bone-numbing crunch. He had tried to roll, but the small size of the balcony had made that almost impossible. All it had resulted in was him bleeding off the speed and force of the fall as he thrust his face into the many sharp edges of the duffel bag.


    Neither of his ankles liked him at the moment, as his feet had hit first. The effort of pushing his momentum into pseudo-roll had not been kind to them. Nothing was broken, he thought, but plenty was hurting, especially his face.


    Getting to his knees, he hit the button and almost cried with relief when the glass opened. Grabbing the duffel bag, he shuffled inside and closed the window behind him.


    Trace kept shuffling, until he was out of view, and could relax. His nails bit into the flesh of his hands as he fisted them and banged his head against the wall while biting his lip. He still didn¡¯t think anything was broken, but holy-frack did it all hurt!


    In the corner of his vision, the nanite notification popped up with a new message.


    - Multiple injuries registered across all active bones undergoing the repair process


    Trace would have reacted to that if he¡¯d been able to. For some reason, he thought the nanites were only working on him while he was asleep.


    - All non-active nanites deployed for updated scan procedure of user¡¯s health


    - User is advised to relax


    What happened next could only be described as having ants underneath his skin. They were walking everywhere, massaging his muscles, tickling his nerves, poking at every spot that was sore, endlessly. Thousands, millions of microscopic little grabbers or feet marched their way through his body over the next thirty minutes.


    It was a terrible time to be immobile, but at least it gave him something to focus on instead of the possible search going on for him.


    It was torture, plain and simple, and he was so glad that the last time this had happened he had been asleep. He resolved right then and there that one of the next things he was getting was some sort of medical upgrade. Something that could scan him with greater efficiency than these little buggers could manage on their own.


    The feeling of invasive bugs underneath his skin only lasted for thirty minutes, but it took another fifteen minutes for him to get a report.


    - No broken bones or fractures detected


    - Six major ligaments have been damaged


    - Two minor ligaments have been torn


    - Deep bruising reaching to the skeletal network registered in several places


    - Repairs are unable to be performed at this time due to lack of required materials


    - An exponential increase in nutritious matter will be needed to perform the repairs in a timely manner


    - Non-standard nanites needed for additional repairs


    - Construction of nanite production facility required, provide required materials


    He finally released the breath he had been holding and unclenched his trembling hand. What did it mean by a timely? Was that five minutes, or ten days? Either would be faster than normal, but there was a big difference between the two.


    And what was it talking about when it mentioned constructing a facility inside him? He wasn¡¯t sure he wanted something like that, taking up space in his body. Asking it questions could wait until later. Right now, he just wanted to rest some more.


    No matter what though, that medical sensor what going to be absolutely necessary. It was all he could do to not claw off and tear at his own skin. The feeling of the nanites moving about had been completely alien in nature. For a while there, he really had been almost convinced that bugs had somehow gotten in underneath his skin.


    It was not something he wanted to do again, at least not while he was conscious. He didn¡¯t care what the reason was, going through that again simply wouldn¡¯t be worth it.


    It took him another minute to regain control of himself and to do a few basic scans of the apartment. There were no cameras anywhere in the place. In fact, the odds that someone was actively living there were somewhat low.


    A thin layer of dust coated everything that he could see. If he had to judge, then no one had been inside the apartment for at least a few weeks. The bills were still being paid, considering that the sliding door had let him in, and the lights all worked. That meant the person who lived here was either away on a business trip, which was possible. Or had died somewhat recently, and no one had reported it, a far more likely outcome in Trace''s opinion.


    The apartment was nice, but not as nice as the one he had just jumped from. He doubted someone who couldn¡¯t even afford a nicer place would be sent on a business trip. But what did he know? He wasn¡¯t part of that world.


    Despite how it had felt at the time, his body felt strangely relaxed as he pulled himself toward the fridge. He had never had a massage, but his body had just gone through what amounted to the world¡¯s most invasive massage ever. If he could get past the urge to tear his skin off, it was actually rather nice. He might need to see if the nanites could do just his muscles in the future. It would still feel weird in the moment, but afterward¡­


    The fridge turned out to be half-full of food-in-a-can drinks, and vacuum-packed sandwiches and burritos. He tore into a burrito and grabbed one of the drinks to go as he scooted about the apartment. Despite his general dislike for them, they did supposedly have a lot of nutrients, which his body and the nanites desperately needed at the moment.


    Trace stayed on his rear end as he made his way to the front door. He wanted to ensure it was locked, which it was. From there, he went to the bedroom and retrieved the data cable from his bag. It was time to jack into the apartment¡¯s user interface and learn what he could about the person who lived there.

 Chapter 14

    The bedroom was the first real clue he got that the owner of the apartment hadn¡¯t meant to leave for long. There were clothes scattered all around the place. There were piles of what he was assuming were freshly laundered ones on the bed, and then a smaller pile of dirty clothes tossed in the corner. The clothes scattered about had come from the closest that stood open along the wall.


    Trace had never seen so many clothes in his life before. Why did a person need so many outfits? He had managed all his life with only a couple of different changes of clothes. Sure, they were ragged, but that was life.


    He dragged himself to the screen, opened the port beside the bed, and plugged in.


    Activating the system breaching module, he set it on the task of breaking through the apartment user¡¯s credentials. Breaking through the building¡¯s security would be impossible with the pre-built module he had. However, cracking the locks on the apartment owner¡¯s information should still be within its capabilities.


    The module Stick-Point had given him wasn¡¯t exactly high end, but it wasn¡¯t something ultra-cheap either. He would be wanting it back after the job was over.


    It took less time to breach the apartment¡¯s security than it had for the module to enter the computer. Obviously, the designers of the system couldn''t care less about account security from inside the apartment.


    Once he was in, he began checking the logs and going through all the information he could find.


    The last time the front door had been opened was nineteen days earlier. Before that, the owner would regularly enter and leave multiple times a day at random times. They had to be working from the apartment somehow. He would take a look at the room where the office had been in the target¡¯s apartment. So far, both apartments followed the same layout, so there would likely be an office there as well.


    He did discover that the apartment was paid up for the month and was set to renew automatically with the credits being taken from a pre-assigned account. In other words, even if the owner had died, no one would notice until that account ran out of money at some unknown point in the future.


    There was no name listed anywhere that he saw. Instead, it used an identifier code in its place. After a moment''s thought, he added himself to the apartment account using a new identifier code.


    With that done, the apartment would now recognize him as one of the owners of the apartment. He had full access to the doors, locks, and everything. Which meant the first thing he, of course, locked was the balcony door. There was no point playing with fate by leaving it unlocked.


    He wouldn¡¯t likely stay in the apartment for long, but it could serve as a safe-house or something if he needed it.


    This wasn¡¯t the type of place he wanted to live in full-time. It was far too upscale for someone like him. There was no way he would be able to haul his junk into the apartment without causing a ruckus. No, it definitely wasn¡¯t the type of apartment he would personally live in long-term.


    For a few days while he healed, assuming the proper owner really wasn¡¯t coming back, yeah, that he could manage.


    ***


    ¡®Made a mistake on the job and turned off the cameras in the apartment too soon. They must have alerted the target that someone was in his apartment. I got everything from the computer and managed to escape. But hurt myself in the process. It will be a couple of days before I can get everything to you.¡¯ Trace sent the message to Stick-Point with a grimace and then began a new one to Devko.


    ¡®You wouldn¡¯t by any chance know of a way to help heal damaged ligaments, would you?¡¯


    ¡®I thought you were staying away from the scavs. Did they find you?¡¯ She sent back with minimal delay.


    He grinned, yup she had saved his contact information. There hadn¡¯t even been a question as to who he was or hesitation there, nothing. It felt good to be memorable for once.


    ¡®I was on a job for Stick-Point and messed up. I alerted the target that someone was in his apartment when I disabled the cameras he had in his bedroom. Anyway, I escaped, but it involved jumping down to a lower-floor balcony.¡¯ He had no real idea why he was telling her all of that, outside of the desire for something to be there between them.


    Trace just hoped he wasn¡¯t forcing it by giving her all the extra details. He had never been in a relationship before, and before laying eyes on her had never even really wanted to either.


    ¡®You are lucky you survived¡­¡¯ He nodded his head in agreement but was confused by the dots at the end.


    The two continued trading messages back and forth for a while longer before ending the chain. She had given him a few ideas for items that he could get from the pharmacies. However, his best option was to come in to get checked out again.


    His stomach was empty by that point, and he quickly downed the entire contents of the food-in-a-can. They were normally something he drank over a few minutes, but not this time.


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    Almost immediately, a new notification appeared in the corner of his vision.


    - High levels of synthetic chemicals related to brain chemistry found within food


    - Breaking synthetic chemicals down to prevent mind-altering effects on the user


    The corner of his eye twitched several times as he read that. No wonder he had always felt weird after drinking several of those things. They were actively putting mind-altering substances in them.


    He wondered what other foods did something similar, just in lower dosages.


    At least that was one less thing he needed to worry about now. Sliding off the bed, he scooted along the floor toward the office. Time to find out what sort of business the owner of this apartment was in.


    Sliding along the dusty floor, the door to the office sprang open on his approach and immediately answered his question. The owner had been in a dangerous line of work.


    Trace doubted they were an edger, but they had certainly been something. There were several guns or openings for guns of each type hanging along the wall. Sniper rifles, scout rifles with scopes, semi-automatics, pistols, revolvers. There were even spots for a couple of swords, throwing knives, and regular knives.


    It was a decent collection for a personal armory. It was too bad at least half of them were currently missing.


    Looking at the wall opposite the armory, he saw a large screen with information spread across the entire thing. All of the visible space was devoted to tracking the various high-level workers of a corporation by the name of ¡®Sekmore Snak-Co¡¯. The name didn¡¯t ring a bell for him, but then again, he had never had the disposable credits for snacks either.


    He wondered why the owner of the apartment was targeting this corporation in particular. They weren¡¯t a large corporation that was pretending to be more than they actually were. As far as he could tell from the quick surface-level search he ran, led him to believe the place was a fairly small company.


    It wasn¡¯t until he reached the news articles that everything began to snap into focus.


    It was a small company, at least compared to other corporations. Its influence was mainly centered around the Mountain Collective and hadn¡¯t really expanded beyond their borders. At least not beyond a few small merchants.


    Like any ¡®good¡¯ corporation, however, it wasn¡¯t without its negative headlines and there were plenty. He hadn¡¯t realized there could be so many negative things said about a snack company until that. Apparently, they were lacing their foods with mind-altering substances.


    Yeah, considering what he¡¯d just experienced with the food-in-a-can, he¡¯d believe it.


    These substances were meant to make their snacks irresistible, to the point that they were addictive. He guessed the idea had been to guarantee sales by ensuring their customers were addicted to their products. It had worked a little too well, apparently.


    There were reports of people fighting in stores over snacks, stabbing each other, and even one case where some lady bit another woman¡¯s nose off because she stole the last pastry.


    All of those brought the company into the spotlight, and not in a good way. Corporations ruled society, but they still had to maintain a certain image. If they didn¡¯t, other larger corporations would sanction them. It seemed as though that was what had happened this time, and it had only made things worse.


    The substance, drug, whatever it was, got removed from their snacks, and their customers went into withdrawals. A few died, and many turned to other drugs to scratch that newfound itch, but all of their lives were ruined in some way.


    The latest article he found on the corporation was also the most interesting. Someone had attacked their main headquarters in Denver, Colorado. The assailant had been heavily armed but had sustained severe damage and been fought off. They had no current information on the identity of the attacker. The first three reinforced floors of the Sekmore Snak-Co headquarters had been destroyed during the attack.


    It wasn¡¯t a bad result, Trace supposed, though it was a little lacking. Honestly, considering how much planning the owner of the place had put into tracking everyone, he had expected something more precise. This had been a sledgehammer attack, not a surgical precision that the wall in front of him led him to believe the owner was capable of.


    Had something changed suddenly?


    He guessed he would never know unless the owner suddenly made it back. It was possible, he supposed, but also a little unlikely. The attack had happened three weeks ago, and while the assailant might have gotten away. They had gotten away severely injured. If the apartment owner was still alive, it was likely in a sewer drain slowly rotting away.


    Well, at least he no longer needed to worry about using the apartment. He had an idea who the owner was now, and why he hadn¡¯t come back. Even if they were alive, and by some miracle not rotting away in a drain, then they would be smart enough not to come back to their apartment so soon. They would go to a backup place until the heat died down and they could guarantee no one was following them.


    At least that is what he would do if he had the kind of money to afford all of this.


    Trace scooted his way over to the desk and then carefully lifted himself into the chair. Every slight pressure on his legs hurt, but it was his ankles that were the worst.


    The computer here wasn¡¯t nearly as customized as the one in the apartment above. Unfortunately, this was something more normal. It was still far outside Trace¡¯s budget, but it didn¡¯t quite get his blood flowing the same way the other one had.


    Plugging in his data cable, he used the system breaching module to gain access to the system. Only once he was in and had added himself as a user to the computer did he unplug the cable. This time, he also pulled out the module and carefully stored it in his bag.


    Cracking his slightly stiff neck, he began to go through the information on the computer. There wasn¡¯t much on there. Most of the saved information pertained to searches on the corporation and digging up dirt on the employees. In other words, it was everything he had already seen on the wall.


    There were no extra applications or games anywhere on the machine. The owner of the apartment lived for a single thing, and then he had botched it up in the end.


    Staying on the much more comfortable computer chair, Trace wheeled himself around the room. There were plenty of drawers that he hadn¡¯t had a chance to open yet. The ones closest to the arsenal were filled with ammunition and cleaning supplies.


    The next couple of drawers had various grenades and explosives. Then there were a whole lot of empty ones.


    The drawer closest to the computer is where Trace struck it rich in a metaphorical sense. It was filled with modules, and at least half of them, maybe more, were teaching modules. They were exactly what he had been needing, although some of the subjects were a little specialized for his taste. The owner had apparently really liked his explosives.

 Chapter 15

    Going through the teaching modules, Trace immediately saw two that he simply grabbed. One was for beginner programming, while the other was for pre-cybernetic technology. The next several modules in both series were also in the drawer, among many other subjects.


    Whoever the owner of the apartment had been, his interests had certainly ranged wide. Either that, or he had needed pieces from all of these subjects for his plan on Sekmore.


    Trace didn¡¯t really care either way. All he knew was that he no longer needed to buy those particular modules. He was going to be laid up for the next few days, minimum, while his body healed, and he had just found the best method to pass the time.


    Stick-Point finally messaged him back as he was scooting his way into the kitchen to fetch some more food.


    ¡®Did you get away clean? Are you safe? How did you get injured?¡¯


    ¡®Yes, to both, and I took a leap of faith and landed wrong.¡¯


    ¡®?YOU DID WHAT? What floor was the target''s apartment on again?¡¯


    ¡®Nine, I jumped down to the balcony of an apartment on the eighth floor.¡¯


    ¡®I¡¯m rethinking whether you¡¯re ready for these jobs¡­¡¯


    Trace slammed his hand down on the counter with a growl. ¡®That¡¯s not fair Stick-Point! It was my first gig like this. I made a mistake, but I got away clean. Next time I¡¯ll do better, that¡¯s how everyone is.¡¯


    He pulled open the refrigerator and grabbed another burrito for his already empty stomach. Whatever the nanites were doing, they were tearing through the food he was giving them.


    Before closing the door, he changed his mind and grabbed several food-in-a-can drinks as well. If he was going to be doing an extended session of laying on his back with a teaching module, then he wouldn¡¯t want to keep getting up.


    He fired off a few more messages to Stick-Point and then wheeled himself back to the bedroom. Shoving the pile of clothes to the side, he tossed the duffel bag onto the bed. The food went onto a nearby nightstand and then he awkwardly slid onto the bed and began the painful process of removing his boots.


    They had kept the swelling around his ankles down, but he was not going to sleep or lie around in bed with his boots on.


    Both ankles resembled puffed-up sausages more than they did proper ankles. Once he saw how bad they were, he decided to hop back onto the chair and made his way to the bathroom. Using some wet towels, he made some cold compresses. It was the best he could do at the moment. The first aid supplies he had brought with him didn¡¯t have anything that would help the swelling.


    Trace had meds for pain and bullet holes in his bag, but not for this. He hadn¡¯t thought to bring one of the proper first aid kits with him on what was supposed to be an easy job. After this, one of them was going to become a permanent fixture in his bag.


    Back on the bed, he devoured the burrito and plugged in the teaching module for beginner programming. It took a few seconds for the icon to appear as the module was thoroughly scanned and ultimately deemed safe. Unlike the system breaching module, he wouldn¡¯t be able to run this one in a virtual sandbox environment.


    Teaching modules taught a person at an accelerated pace, and that required access to his net spark. It would still take some time to complete the module. However, it was somewhat similar to completing several old college or university-level courses in a matter of weeks instead of months or years. They compressed the time needed, but the person in question still needed to put in the work for the information and the skills.


    None of it was freely given to them. The teaching modules weren¡¯t capable of simply putting the information inside a person¡¯s head. Nothing could do that. If they could do that, then they might also be able to implant false memories and more. Research in that direction had been strictly prohibited by the metal goddess herself.


    As soon as the program started, he was transported into his avatar, his spark, which currently resembled him in its default state. He could change it if he wanted, but this was his first time actually being able to use his own spark. His old NetConnect hadn¡¯t been able to support the feature. Apparently, the manufacturer had decided it was too premium of an option for a few years. They later rolled back that decision and made it part of the standard package, screwing everyone over who had been forced to get their earlier product.


    The program placed his spark inside a classroom. In front of him, there was a desk and computer with multiple screens at the ready. The front of the classroom was made up of a single large screen that took up the entire wall, ensuring that he could see everything. A faceless teacher was standing to the side, waiting for him to take a seat so it could begin teaching him.


    It started off with a brief test to see where his knowledge of the subject lay and then jumped right into the lessons.


    Apparently, back in the old days, programming was a very language and syntax-focused endeavor. There were multiple languages, with each one having its own requirements that the programmer needed to learn. They did it too because some were better than others for certain applications.


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    If you wanted the program to simply run fast, but it would only be open for a short period then you could get away with a language that was less optimized but easier to work with. On the other hand, if you were writing something that was meant to be open for long periods of time, you would want to go with a more stable language. If you didn¡¯t, then there would be leaks, and all of a sudden it would take all of your RAM or CPU cycles.


    At least, that is how it was supposed to work. Companies still prioritized speed above all else and subpar work inevitably got pushed out constantly.


    That was where the current model of programming came into play. It was almost strictly visual-based, with a small coding component to it. If someone wanted to, they could still truly learn how to program with it and optimize their program. Few took the time to learn how to do that. A few programmers would optimize some basic functions on each of their programs, but never go beyond that.


    In a way, it was disappointing to learn that this is all programming truly was. A part of him had been expecting more of the old style, and to discover that this is what it was, removed some of the mystique he had always felt for the subject. Regardless, he would still learn all he could, at least as long as it held his interest.


    Trace dove into the lessons, only coming out when the protestations of his body made themselves known. His stomach was grumbling about how empty it was, and his bladder was gurgling because of how full it was.


    At least the swelling in his ankles had gone down some. He downed another food-in-a-can, ignored the notifications that popped up in the corner of his vision, and carefully wheeled himself to the bathroom. After wrapping his ankles in freshly wetted cold compresses, he settled back in the bed for some sleep. He would have loved to do some more lessons, but his mind and body were dead-tired and needed some rest.


    The morning brought a few new pops along his spine as something adjusted itself when he stretched out. The bulk of whatever the tiny robots were doing inside him seemed to have been focused on releasing the pressure from his swelling ankles. Looking down at his feet, they almost looked normal. It was an illusion that only lasted until he tried to move them.


    The pain was still there. The little buggers hadn¡¯t fixed anything. All they had done was remove the swelling, so it didn¡¯t damage him.


    After a passionate round of cursing, he pulled up the notifications they always had in the corner of his vision and read through them. They had done some more work on his bones, which he already knew. They needed more materials like always, and then there, at the very bottom, were two items he had forgotten about. Well, more like unconsciously pushed from his mind.


    - Non-standard nanites needed for additional repairs to the user¡¯s body


    - Construction of a nanite production facility is required, provide required materials


    There it was the reason they hadn¡¯t done anything to help fix his body during the night. They didn¡¯t have any of these non-standard nanites yet, whatever those even were. The problem was he didn¡¯t even know if there was any titanium in the apartment that he could swallow.


    Grabbing the duffel bag, he pulled everything out and sorted them according to metal.


    There was no titanium, however, he did find a fair bit of gold, stainless steel, and even a bit of platinum. All good metals, in his opinion, but not what he needed. However, they might still work in a pinch. A quick search on the net showed that stainless steel and platinum had both been used for medical instruments in the past. Not necessarily being left inside the body, but, well, these two were his only options currently.


    Trace separated everything with those two metals out and proceeded to destroy them. He hadn¡¯t brought along equipment to cut apart metal and was left to bash at them with a hammer like a savage. It got the job done, mostly, but it also left him with a lot of pieces that were too large for him to swallow.


    Regardless, he forced down what he could, and moved back to the bed after drinking yet another food-in-a-can. He felt like he was going to burst, but the nanites kept burning through the material inside the food. So, they obviously needed more of it, even if they hadn¡¯t gotten around to healing his newest issues yet.


    Laying down, he started up the teaching program and lost himself for a few hours in the task of learning. It was a message from Ko that paused the program around lunchtime.


    ¡®Where are you? Sevorah and Stick-Point have both asked me to check up on you and to retrieve a few items at the same time. Is there anything you need me to bring or retrieve?¡¯


    Trace immediately thought of the braincase, food, and some titanium. ¡®Yessss¡­ but it¡¯s going to sound a little weird.¡¯


    ¡®¡­ How weird are we talking?¡¯


    ¡®Nothing kinky, if that¡¯s what you were hoping for. I just need some titanium slivers, food, and something retrieved from my apartment. Which I would remind you, might be watched by scavs or people working with them.¡¯


    ¡®Titanium? You know what, whatever, I can get that easily through the clinic. How much do you need?¡¯


    Trace blinked in surprise; he hadn¡¯t even thought of going to a clinic to get the titanium. ¡®It depends on the cost, but as much as possible. It just needs to be in thin slivers, is all.¡¯


    ¡®Very well. How much can you afford?¡¯


    He closed his eyes and checked his balance. It was higher than he could remember it ever being, but it was time to spend some credits.


    ¡®Let¡¯s say three hundred credits for titanium and another fifty credits for food.¡¯ With any luck, that would give him enough titanium to make a real difference.


    ¡®Done. I¡¯ll even sell it to you at cost.¡¯ He grinned. Yup, she liked him, he hoped. She had been cute. ¡®What did you need me to retrieve from your apartment?¡¯


    ¡®That¡¯s the weird thing. It¡¯s an item I retrieved from the scav den and was working on before this happened.¡¯


    ¡®Okay¡­ and the item is?¡¯


    ¡®It¡¯s a braincase. They were using it as a server.¡¯


    A call from her came through a second later.


    As soon as he answered, his ears were met with a tirade of curses that made them burn. Well, that was definitely one way to get introduced to the new side of a girl.


    He waited for her to take a breath before cutting in. ¡°I take it you know the problems that can cause?¡±


    There was silence for a beat, and then a growled, ¡°Yes,¡± Came through the call. ¡°How sane is the brain?¡±


    ¡°No idea. I managed to connect to it, but it was in a coma. I want to keep the braincase close so I can monitor it. I have some nutrient mix at the apartment if you can bring that as well.¡±


    ¡°I could bring it back to the clinic?¡± She volunteered.


    ¡°I appreciate the offer, but let¡¯s hold off on that for the moment. I don¡¯t want to get you or Sevorah involved with this scav business more than I already have.¡±

 Chapter 16

    Trace had managed to sort through a portion of the information on the data prism by the time Ko arrived with everything. From the look of the bags in her arms, she had brought more stuff with her than he had asked her to. Not that he was going to complain, she was doing him a favor after all.


    There had indeed been a whole host of home movies made by the pervert. He had no desire to watch those and deleted them right away. A simple search pulled up all the documents on the prism, and a few of the titles led to him including them on what he would give to Stick-Point.


    He would let the client decide if they were worth a bonus or not. Judging by the titles, they were along the lines of what he was looking for, but he wasn¡¯t going to open them and double-check. A fact that he made sure Stick-Point was aware of and would tell the client. He didn¡¯t want any of this coming back on him later.


    Ko entered the apartment and pushed back the chair he was sitting on. ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting you to be holed up in such a nice place.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, me neither. I think the owner is dead though, so the place is mine for the moment.¡± That earned him a raised brow. ¡°Come on, I¡¯ll show you what I mean.¡±


    A short walk later, she was standing in the office, studying the wall with the screen on it that had all the information about the Sekmore Snak-Co employees displayed on it.


    ¡°I remember hearing about this attack,¡± She muttered almost reverently. ¡°The medical portion of the clinic used to receive some of their victims every couple of days. Sevorah was so mad they hadn¡¯t managed to do more damage to the corporation in the attack.¡±


    ¡°It looks like their original plan would have done plenty of damage. Then, for whatever reason, he changed it at the last moment.¡± Trace told her, showing her how much effort, the owner of the apartment had put into planning his revenge, only to throw it all away.


    She placed several bags carefully on the desk. ¡°You got lucky finding this place, especially since you injured yourself reaching it. I got everything you asked for in these bags. Now, let me take a look at your ankles.¡±


    Ko kneeled down in front of him and lifted up the ragged edges of his pant leg. ¡°I¡¯m amazed the swelling has already gone down this much. What were you taking?¡±


    ¡°Some pain and anti-inflammatory pills I recovered from the scavs.¡± He replied sheepishly.


    She shook her head in amusement but didn¡¯t say anything. Taking off the backpack she had been wearing, she began pulling out various pieces of medical equipment he didn¡¯t recognize.


    ¡°Did you bring an entire emergency kit with you?¡± He joked.


    ¡°Of course. Just because you said you damaged some ligaments doesn¡¯t mean anything. Who says you know what you are talking about? I had to be prepared for every eventuality.¡± She replied seriously.


    Trace groaned. ¡°Ko, you can¡¯t just go carrying around that sort of equipment. Someone is going to try to steal it from you.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re welcome to try.¡± A monofilament whip appeared at the tip of several of her fingers. She was ready to dice anyone who got too close.


    ¡°Just be careful. People carry guns for a reason, you know? So, they don¡¯t have to get close to scary people like you.¡±


    She grinned at his description of her and set about her task of scanning him. ¡°You have deep bruising all the way to the bone from where you must have hit something. That will be painful for sure, but will heal just fine on its own. The main issue is the torn and damaged ligaments. The major ligaments are only damaged and on their own, they can take several months to heal.


    ¡°The torn ligaments, however, will require surgery. To reconnect the ends together, I can do that here though with what I brought with me. It won¡¯t be the best job, but it will get the process started. I would suggest having Sevorah clean it up and remove any scar tissue that forms later.¡±


    He nodded. Anything that helped the nanites heal his body faster was good in his book, and reconnecting the torn ends could only help. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s do it. As long as you¡¯re confident you won¡¯t have me walking weird afterward.¡±


    Ko rolled her eyes and snorted. ¡°If I was the one actually doing the operation, then maybe. All I will be doing is making sure the machine knows which ligament is damaged and is set in the proper location. A program will do the rest.¡±


    She quickly strapped a machine to his leg and adjusted it, so it sat around his ankle. Without waiting for his permission, she inputted the appropriate settings and pushed the start button. A jet-injector pressed against his skin and shot in a local anesthesia. As it pulled away, he got a quick glimpse of the indentation it had created. There was absolutely no splash-back from his blood, or even any visible holes from the compressed air delivery system, at least not at the moment.


    The machine gave the anesthesia a few seconds to work before a laser scalpel began cutting into his leg.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Ko reached into her bag as the automated process began its work. ¡°Are you sure you don¡¯t want me to take this back to the clinic?¡±


    The braincase was in her hands.


    He nodded. ¡°I¡¯m sure. If those scavs try and retrieve it, I don¡¯t want them going after you. Besides, the poor person is in a coma and totally unresponsive at the moment. All I¡¯m going to be doing is making sure their nutrient mix is topped up and watching to see if they come out of it.¡±


    She rolled her eyes and passed the case to him. ¡°That is a thin excuse, Trace. How would the scavs even know we had it at the clinic in the first place? I¡¯ve already run a scan on it and there aren¡¯t any transmitters of that nature on it.¡±


    ¡°Fine, I have my own reasons for wanting to keep it close right now, and I¡¯m just being cautious. However, the data I found on the prism shards is enough to keep the scavs coming after it for a long time. Once they figure out who stole it all, I will have them coming after me. You were right about that.¡±


    She gave him a deep, penetrating stare. ¡°And what valid reasons could someone have for wanting to keep a comatose braincase?¡±


    He sighed and took it from her hands. ¡°I don¡¯t know how close you looked it over before coming here, but it doesn¡¯t have any identifiers on it. There are no corporation marks, nothing. Then there was the case I found it in, which was completely custom and old. I think this could be some sort of old prototype braincase. I want to find out who made it and how old it really is. I¡¯ve never seen a model like it before. I like tech stuff. It¡¯s one of my hobbies.¡±


    All true, though a little twisted.


    She took it back and began closely examining it. ¡°Huh, you¡¯re right. There aren¡¯t any marks on it anywhere to indicate who made it or when. Fine, just be careful. I¡¯ll take a few photos of it as well and see what I can find among the medical community.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, I appreciate it.¡± He reached into his bag and grabbed the data prism he had prepared for her, along with the system breaching module. ¡°This is the information for the job and the module. Tell Stick-Point thanks for trusting me to get the job done, even if I did kind of screw it up in the end.¡±


    She placed both in a pouch in her bag and then just sat beside him as the machine worked on his ankle. The two talked about everything they could think of, the conversation coming in fits and bursts. It wasn¡¯t awkward per se, but they were still getting to know each other, and both of them were clearly loners by nature.


    When it finished on his first ankle, she placed it on his second one and set it up the same way.


    ¡°How did you get hooked up with Sevorah, anyway? If you don¡¯t mind me asking?¡± He inquired as she finished inputting the new directions on the surgical machine.


    Her hand touched her throat, the action seeming an unconscious one on her part. ¡°Sekmore isn¡¯t the only corporation that has tried to introduce various brain-altering chemicals into the formulas of their food. Another corporation tried it six years ago, and I¡¯m sure there were others before that one. The effects on those who were addicted to their product were more violent than they anticipated.


    ¡°A few of the victims turned to cannibalism when they couldn¡¯t afford it any longer. My own mother did this to me with her teeth in a fit of blind rage. Thankfully, the neighbors heard and called Sevorah. My mother was put into an institution until she recovered, but now she won¡¯t even look at me. Sevorah took me in and fixed my throat. I¡¯ve been learning from her ever since.¡±


    Trace had not been expecting anything like that. ¡°Wow, I¡¯m sorry. No wonder you were so interested in the attack on Sekmore then. What happened to the corporation that did that to you and your mother? Anything?¡±


    She shook her head. ¡°No, unlike Sekmore, they were and are a proper-sized corporation. They paid out a few bribes and medical bills and then made the entire problem go away. They did at least change their formula to cause fewer issues, but they are still around and larger than ever.¡±


    ¡°Did anyone ever try and do anything to them?¡±


    She snorted and swiped at her eyes. ¡°Yeah, right, you saw what happened to the owner of this apartment, and Sekmore is a tiny corporation. On the other hand, Siren¡¯s Rush was creeping into midsize range at the time, something that they are firmly in now. If anyone dared to try anything against them back then, I certainly never heard about it. They would have been efficiently removed and taken care of before word could ever reach the news.¡± The bitterness in her voice held a distinct edge of helplessness to it.


    Trace found himself holding her hand, stroking the back of her fingers in what he hoped was a calming manner. ¡°Well, we have a blueprint right here for attacking a corporation, and I mean the original method, not the one he decided to go with. It would take a lot of training, and luck along with some modifications, but I¡¯m sure we could modify it to fit the Siren¡¯s Rush corporation.¡±


    She looked up at the screen and slowly nodded. ¡°It might be worth looking into. If not with us, then possibly having another team do it. They hurt a lot of people back then.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough. Now how much do I owe you for the food, titanium slivers, delivery, and fixing me up?¡± He asked with what he hoped was a roguish smile.


    ¡°You¡¯re getting a discount on some of the services this time. Sevorah is still using you to get into Stick-Point''s good graces.¡±


    He scoffed. ¡°Please, that man is so lonely he would agree to a date with a corpo-rat at this point. She mentioned before that they¡¯ve been friends for years; she just needs to take the plunge. That said, I will gladly take all the discounts I can get.¡±


    A moment later, a bill for four hundred and fifty credits came through. It was a lot, but he could also guarantee that there really had been a hefty discount applied to the services. Still, it was annoying to see his funds drop so severely in one go.


    Without a word, he paid it.


    Leaning against the wall, the two made small talk for the next few minutes while the surgical machine finished working on his ankle. Her telling him about her past had made everything a little awkward between them. They weren¡¯t close enough to simply brush past it, but they also weren¡¯t distant enough to simply ignore it and each other.


    He could tell her about his past, but honestly, there was nothing special there. His story was the same as millions of others. His parents had died when he was a kid, and everything inside the apartment had been confiscated to pay their debts. He had been thrown out on the streets to fend for himself when he was six, nearly seven years old.


    Those days had been hard, especially the winters. The winters in Denver were brutal, with the spring season being little better. The rain was always ice cold and could chill you to the bone in seconds.


    It was a common story. The only special thing about it was that it was his.


    Thankfully, he was kept from sharing the pitiful truth as the machine beeped and disengaged. After saying their farewells, she packed everything up and left with a sigh of relief.

 Chapter 17

    Trace didn¡¯t let his thoughts linger on how disastrous that had gone. He was sure pretty much any chance he had with her had vanished. All he could do at the moment was focus on the now, and that meant swallowing all the titanium she had brought.


    He paid special attention to the pressure he put on his ankles and feet as he wheeled himself over to the desk. The top of the first bag was filled to the brim with medical-grade titanium slivers. He gave it an experimental heft and grunted softly in surprise at the weight. The cost was higher for medical grade, but there were still over five pounds of titanium in the bag, along with all the other food.


    Even on his best runs through the junkyard, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to get that much titanium for three hundred and fifty credits. He had been a fool not to ask them to begin with.


    Carefully, he unpackaged the metal slivers, taking a moment to appreciate their size. When she had said thin slivers, he had imagined thin sheets of metal. Instead, what he got were countless pieces of shaved titanium. They were the perfect size for fitting inside a crucible and melted down. He didn¡¯t know that was something Sevorah did, but it also wouldn¡¯t surprise him to learn.


    Sometimes people needed custom bones or joints created and installed in a hurry. The only way for that to happen is if they were created on-site. A foundry printer could handle the temperatures needed for titanium. The final product would need to be finished and machined by another printer though.


    He shook his head, just imagining the cost to set something like that up. Either Sevorah was very well connected, or he was inflating what a few pieces of metal meant.


    Regardless, they were the perfect size for him to shove down his throat without it hurting too much.


    After a couple of minutes of going through his goodies, he packed it all up and brought it into the bedroom. The braincase he placed on the nightstand while the bags went on the bed. He was going to need them close by for what was likely to happen next.


    He popped the tab on a soda and began gulping it down along with smaller pieces the titanium. His body was so thirsty, he was just about ready to start drinking the water from inside the apartment. There were signs on all the sinks telling people not to do that, but he was so thirsty!


    Whatever the nanites were doing to him, liquid was definitely one of the things they considered a resource.


    He promptly opened another and began repeating the process. It was only on the third can that he began to slow down and switched to a burrito. With the appearance of food, he was able to start shoving down larger pieces of metal into his mouth and the back of his throat. It hurt, and there were a few that occasionally got stuck on the way down. Those were the pieces where food and drink really helped.


    Eating metal definitely wasn¡¯t the most fun he had ever had, but at least he knew it would help.


    After finishing the soda and burrito, he started up the teaching module and entered his lessons once more.


    ***


    Trace found his lesson interrupted by the increasingly desperate calls of his body. During a very satisfying, but exceedingly disgusting visit to the bathroom, he noticed the interminable notification in the corner of his vision. Whatever the nanites were doing, they were taking all the useable material from his food and body, while leaving nothing but nasty waste behind.


    - Presence of high-grade titanium detected


    - Construction of the nanite production facility has begun


    - Extensive use of learning software detected


    - Additional permissions are required to increase the user¡¯s reward


    - Requesting that the user repeat the previous action of inserting a finger into the nutrient mix hole of the braincase


    He sighed in resignation as he read the request, already knowing that he would do it. He had started down this path, and might as well continue to go down it and see where it led.


    He cleaned his hands and rolled the chair back into the bedroom. His stomach rumbled as he spotted the bag with all the food in it. He was hungry again.


    That could wait a few minutes. He had a braincase hole to poke first.


    Trace picked up the braincase from the nightstand and pushed the same finger as before into the hole. The clamping pressure came to hold his finger in place and then held it as it began to heat up. It wasn¡¯t doing the same thing it had last time, instead; he had the feeling it was downloading a massive amount of information. At some point, the nanites had gained access to his NetConnect and he could sense a partition form as they took over a portion of its memory.


    The heat in his finger remained steady as the minutes passed until at last it let go of him nearly ten minutes later. Whatever it had been doing, it had just passed on an enormous amount of data to him. He had never seen a download take so long before. Then again, he had never seen one happen through nanites either. Maybe they were just slow.


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Before putting the braincase back on the nightstand, he checked the nutrient mix level. After seeing that it was a tad low, he refilled it and then set about filling his own tank. The grumbling of his stomach had gotten increasingly louder over the last couple of minutes.


    It was all he could do to remember to shove the metal shavings down first before the sandwich. Despite how careful he was being, his throat was getting more torn up every time he forced the sharp items down. He would need to see if it was possible to roll some of the thinner pieces into a ball later. At least with something like that, his throat would survive a while longer.


    He booted the lesson back up and continued right where he had been interrupted.


    *************************


    Please take a moment to rate the story. As the author, I am only putting this story on RoyalRoad at this time. If you are reading it anywhere else, please let me know.


    *************************


    ***


    Trace was feeling much better in the morning, despite the numerous cracks and pops his body made as he shifted about. Eagerly, he pulled up the notifications to see how much progress they had made.


    - Construction of nanite production facility completed


    - Specialized nanites have entered production


    - Skeletal System Repair (Percent Completed): 23%


    - Muscular System Repair (Percent Completed): 05%


    - Six major and two minor ligaments have been repaired to the previous base standard


    - Integration of G.H.O.S.T. System begun


    - Integration of G.H.O.S.T. System completed


    ¡°Ghost System?¡± Trace wondered aloud, distantly noting that both his skeletal and muscular repairs had made some progress.


    - G.H.O.S.T.


    - Guided


    - Heuristic


    - Optimization


    - Strategic


    - Toolset


    Right, he had forgotten that he could ask it questions and it would respond. He would need to be better about that. There was a whole mess of items he wanted to ask for more information on.


    Those could wait until later. What couldn¡¯t, was this system, that it had apparently integrated without his permission.


    - Bringing G.H.O.S.T. System online now


    A bar appeared in front of his vision, followed by a percentage marker that ticked rapidly upward, filling the bar as it went. As soon as the bar hit one hundred percent, it vanished, and a new icon appeared in the bottom corner of his vision.


    Somewhat hesitantly, he selected the program icon and ordered it to start. Instantly his vision filled with lines of information, most of it in red, and displaying various errors. After a few moments of panic, all of that went away, and he was left with a new screen.


    ¡®Welcome to the G.H.O.S.T. System. This screen will only be displayed once when the program has been opened by the current user for the first time. This system was created to help humanity adapt to their cyberware and assist in the further development of their knowledge and abilities. This is an experimental system, and the end product will be shipped to people with severe limitations in place. This is the unlimited version of the program, which means you must have gained the trust of my mother and myself. Be careful and let us know if you run into any problems.¡¯


    The screen vanished and was replaced with a list of selections that were almost entirely all in red.


    ¡®Body, Intelligence, Mental, NetConnection, Technology, Nanite, and Learning.¡¯ All but the last two were in red. In the upper corner of his vision, a notification explained why.


    - Current amount of special nanites is insufficient for certain functions of the G.H.O.S.T. System


    - These functions destroy the special nanites during their usage


    - Create more special nanites to unlock these functions


    He wanted to hit something. The nanites had just created that stupid production factory inside him, and now he knew why. It was because of this. They were going to be constantly producing new ones if he wanted to make use of this system. Which he did. It sounded interesting just from the names of the different options and that small introduction message.


    After a moment of dithering, he selected the ¡®Learning¡¯ option first. He briefly saw the words ¡®Absorb Data Prism¡¯ before they were replaced by ¡®Absorb Teaching Module¡¯. That was interesting. It was already changing items in the interface to go along with the current nomenclature.


    With a mental shrug, he selected it and let them do their thing. In the upper corner of his vision, underneath the clock, a countdown appeared, letting him know how long it would take. One hour, he couldn¡¯t decide if that was a long time, or a short amount of time for something like this.


    Either way, the normal icon for accessing the teaching module had turned grey as soon as he had selected the option. That meant for the next hour, he needed to find something else to occupy his time with.


    Nothing a quick nap wouldn¡¯t fix. He had never really had the luxury of doing something like that and found the idea rather appealing. Simply being able to take a nap because you were tired¡­ What a novel concept.


    Which is why that was exactly what he did. Not having to scrimp and save for every credit he came across was something he was rather enjoying. It helped that he was in a safe place, with plenty of food and drink as well. Still, he could get used to this sort of lifestyle.


    When he opened his eyes, well over an hour later, the program had finished and there was a new icon on his main HUD. The main teaching module had regained its original color, and right next to it was the new icon labeled ¡®Enhanced Basic Programming TM¡¯. He assumed the ¡®TM¡¯ was an abbreviation for teaching module.


    Trace hadn¡¯t been expecting it to perform an enhancement on the teaching module. Then again, he hadn¡¯t really known what it would do besides absorb the information from the teaching module.


    He was interested in discovering what these enhancements were and quickly clicked on the new program. At first glance, everything was the same as before. However, as he was going through the lesson, he began to notice that concepts from earlier lessons began to come back to him easier.


    Unsurprisingly, each lesson built off the one prior, and while he knew that, it didn¡¯t mean something wasn¡¯t occasionally forgotten. Now, all of those pieces were coming back to him, and planting themselves firmly inside his mind. He still needed to pay attention to every lesson and learn the material, but it was easier for him to remember everything that he had learned. It wouldn¡¯t simply drift away afterward because he hadn¡¯t practiced it for hours on end yet.


    Once he understood it, the concept would click into place as though he had practiced it dozens or even hundreds of times.


    There was one more surprise still in store for him though. When he left the enhanced learning module hours later, he got the shock of his life when he realized that only a quarter of that time had actually passed. Teaching modules were known for teaching their lesson in an accelerated environment. All that meant in practice was no distractions and no extraneous, useless information. They taught you what you needed to know, and nothing else.


    There were no fancy time-dilation effects. That tended to screw with people¡¯s minds, at least the ones on the common market did. This one was something else altogether.

 Chapter 18

    The enhanced teaching module was exactly what the name said it was. It was a teaching module that had been enhanced. He still had to put the work in to learn the material, just like he would with a normal teaching module. The difference was the enhanced version gave him some extra help and came with fancy time dilation effects.


    That was all he had noticed so far, but admittedly, the module was only for beginning programming. It was pretty low-spec.


    Maybe the more advanced lessons were different. There was only one way to find out. Either way, he wasn¡¯t there yet.


    Trace ejected the teaching module from his neck and popped the next one in the series into place. He might as well see how many of these enhanced teaching modules he could load on his NetConnect.


    He began the absorption process and then started the teaching program again. There was little else he could do at the moment inside the apartment.


    Inside the module, the lessons had finally started to teach him how to call different items into his trashy little programs. At first, it was a simple text document, then it was a formatted document, making sure that it was displayed correctly. From there, it got progressively more difficult as they touched and delved into items pertaining to databases.


    It was definitely dry, but at the same time, this was something he had been wanting to learn for so long that he pushed through. The lessons were at least made more interesting in that they showed him how programmers would have done the same thing in years past. The utter tedium!


    For modern programmers, it was a simple matter of constructing a visual process of what they wanted done, with all the proper steps. You still needed to know the steps after all. But back then, it was line after line after line of code, and that was only for one language. It changed entirely when you wanted to program the exact same thing in a different language.


    It was no wonder they had eventually revolted and created the universal programming language.


    Trace already knew he wasn¡¯t going to become some programmer extraordinaire. He didn¡¯t have the patience for it. If he could learn enough of the basics to begin learning system breaching though, he would be happy. If nothing else, it was an interesting hobby that he would keep learning so he could repair tech as needed.


    Tech was his love anyway, and programming was a means to an end when it came right down to it. You needed one to do a lot with the other for modern components. Unless you were a simple technician who was swapping out bad parts like he had been, then you didn¡¯t need to know more.


    He wanted to know more though; he wasn¡¯t content with his lot in life. Unlike some people, Trace had always had the drive to seek out more knowledge on certain subjects. He had simply lacked the ability and money to actually obtain that knowledge. Now it had all but fallen into his lap.


    Trace finished the current lesson and then exited the module for a breather. He could feel his stomach protesting at being left empty for so long, and his dry mouth wasn¡¯t much better. In the corner of his vision, the countdown for the current module only had a couple of minutes left on it. Where the basic programming had only taken an hour, the intermediate programming had taken two hours.


    Picking up the bag beside him on the bed, he lifted out the box of titanium slivers. Selecting the smallest ones available, he mashed them all together and began rolling them all into a marble-sized ball. It hurt like the devil, as all the little pieces of sharp metal jabbed into his palm. It was a problem that was quickly solved by using a piece of nearby thick clothing to roll it between instead.


    It took a couple of minutes, but sure enough, in the end, he had a decent-looking marble that wouldn¡¯t rip up his throat. It probably wouldn¡¯t be viable for all of the pieces, but he should be able to manage it with a good portion of them.


    Ignoring the grumbling of his stomach for a while longer, he made a few more marbles before allowing himself to begin eating.


    He already felt so much better than before. His ankles felt usable¡­ Well, the notifications had mentioned that they had been repaired to the previous base standard, whatever that was. Either way, while they felt normal just lying in the bed; he wasn¡¯t quite ready to put any actual pressure on them just yet.


    Devko had said he would need several months to heal. However, he didn¡¯t think that would be the case any longer. If he had the credits, she could have probably given him stimulants that would have sped the process along as well. The healing stimulants had to be specifically created for each person. That meant there were several tests he had to go through before they could be created for him.


    A generic version did exist. It wasn¡¯t as effective as the tailored stimulant, and it also cost five times as much. Anyone could take it though, and that was its beauty.


    Regardless, he had the nanites doing whatever it was they were doing. Maybe he would try walking around the apartment that night. He didn¡¯t want to stay immobile for too long. He still had another job that needed to get done after all, and if he didn¡¯t do it soon, then someone else would.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    With that depressing thought in mind, Trace decided to look through the teaching modules a second time. He needed to see what other modules this fellow had collected.


    Swallowing the marble, he scooted the chair into the office while downing a soda. By the time he was in front of the drawer with the teaching modules, the countdown had finished, and a new one had taken its place. Pulling up the notifications, it only took a second to understand what was going on.


    The initial countdown was merely so the nanites could pull the information from the module and begin initial prep work on it. The second countdown was where it re-compiled the teaching module into the enhanced version. He had missed the second countdown the first time around due to his lengthy nap.


    It was interesting, but ultimately didn¡¯t affect him at the moment. He idly bit into the sandwich he had kept on his lap while looking through the modules in the drawer. There had to be some in there that would make him a better shot, or a better wraith. Something that would help with this second job.


    Buried at the back of the drawer, he found what he was looking for. It was a teaching module on all things guns. It had information on their maintenance, proper stances, and how to shoot them. It was effectively a glorified virtual gun range module.


    Next to it was a module for knives, and then another for swords and longer blades. He grabbed them both as well, just in case. Swords weren¡¯t something he had ever considered using before coming to this apartment. However, learning more about knife handling was definitely a good thing.


    Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t see any teaching modules geared towards sneaking around. Oh well, you couldn¡¯t have everything.


    He ejected the ¡®Intermediate Programming¡¯ teaching module and placed it on the desk. For now, he would explore the incredibly creatively named ¡®Guns & Not Dying¡¯. At least the description for it had been somewhat useful. It was also apparently part of a series. If the names for the knife and sword modules were anything to go by.


    Back in the bedroom, he took a few minutes to create another marble. It ended up being a little too large and stretched his throat uncomfortably on the way down. A few gulps of soothing soda, and bites of another slightly stale sandwich later, he was ready to go.


    Starting up the teaching module, he skipped the lessons about caring for his equipment. He would take those later. Right now, he wanted to get to the information he had never been taught. Namely, stances, how to hold the gun correctly, and how to aim. Sure, he knew the basics, or at least he thought he did. But how much of that was wrong? Then he wanted to get into the virtual range.


    It turned out that pretty much everything he thought he knew about firing guns was wrong in some way. He had been holding them incorrectly this entire time in a manner that let far more recoil than needed travel up his arm. Then there was how you were supposed to aim. He had been doing that wrong as well. There were several steps involved that he hadn¡¯t even known about.


    By the time he got to the virtual range, he found his accuracy had already increased a fair bit with just what he had learned. That wasn¡¯t all. The range came with an additional option to continue drilling the basics into him. It would highlight the proper form, motion, and aiming technique to him in real time. He was then supposed to match the outlined figure or an extremely annoying buzzer would sound.


    He wasn¡¯t very good at it, but it was useful to see everything done so close to him on repeat.


    Closing the program, he glanced at the corner of his vision and saw that the countdown was gone. He had been inside long enough that it had finished re-compiling the enhanced version of the teaching module.


    He started absorbing the ¡®Guns & Not Dying¡¯ teaching module. He couldn¡¯t wait to see what the enhanced version of it was like. A countdown for four hours appeared beneath his clock.


    With that out of the way, he decided it was finally time to check out the only option that wasn¡¯t in red at the moment. He had been putting it off for long enough because of how interesting the ¡®Learning¡¯ option had proven to be. Still, he needed to investigate what the ¡®Nanite¡¯ option could do.


    Selecting that option opened a menu with different items listed.


    - Nanite


    /Overload


    /Build More


    /Upgrade


    /Self-Repair


    /Healing


    Traced stared at the menu for several minutes in frustration. None of the items had any sort of explanation to go along with them. There was no way he was selecting ¡®Overload¡¯ without knowing what it did. What if it literally overloaded all the nanites in his body and blew him up, or something?


    He didn¡¯t know why there would be an option for that in the menu, but this entire thing was strange.


    With a growl of defeat, he finally did something that he should have done a while ago. He pulled up the corner of his vision reserved for the notifications from the nanites. It was time to ask the source a few questions. He didn¡¯t know how many it would answer, but any would be more than what he currently had.


    It had felt less silly doing this when he was talking to a braincase instead of himself.


    ¡°What can you tell me about the different options under the Nanite section of the menu in the GHOST System?¡±


    - ¡­ ¡­ ¡­


    - Current systems are limited due to user permissions and available facilities


    - Ability to answer questions limited


    - Overload(Experimental-Use with Caution!) ¨C This uses a buildup of extra-specially created temporary atomites to enhance permanent portions of the user. The cost to create these particular atomites is particularly material and energy-intensive.


    - Build More ¨C This sends a command to create a large number of regular or special nanites at once. Usually, they are created in a continual stream as materials are supplied. ¨C Material intensive.


    - Upgrade ¨C The nanites work toward upgrading a current piece of installed cyberware. User must build up a database of similar devices, or improvements may prove to be minimal in nature beyond energy savings and general streamlining. ¨C Heavily regular nanite and material intensive.


    - Self-Repair ¨C Select this and then a damaged, installed cyberware augment and it will be repaired as long as the blueprint for the undamaged model is found in system memory. ¨C Regular nanite and material intensive.


    - Healing ¨C Target a specific area for rapid healing. ¨C Material, and special nanite intensive.


    Trace blinked slowly and breathed out in a long breath. That was a lot. He suddenly couldn¡¯t wait to find out what the other options in the menu did. Each one of these things was ridiculous! Who could have possibly had the brains and resources to create something like this?


    More than that, why had he never heard of this G.H.O.S.T. System before?

 Chapter 19

    ¡°Who is responsible for the creation of the GHOST System, and why was it never released?¡± Trace asked the nanites somewhat shakily.


    - The creation of the system was performed as a shared project by Meredith Koarden and her son Deckard Koarden


    - The project was never finished due to the attack that they suffered at their main location


    - It was during this attack that Deckard is believed to have been shot and killed by rival corporations'' kill squads


    He inhaled sharply and jerked back, his eyes finding the braincase on the nightstand.


    If only two people were working on the project, then that meant only two people could have had it loaded at the time. The nanites had refused to tell him who it was before, but now they had revealed his identity in a roundabout manner. This was so much worse than he could ever imagine.


    The steel goddess was not known as someone who could be reasoned with. If she even caught so much as a whiff that her son might still be alive, this entire region would be razed to the ground in her search for him.


    Then again, if her enemies found out about him, then the response would be more or less the same.


    Trace kept his eyes on the braincase for several long minutes, his mind scrambling and going in circles. The only saving grace he had at the moment was that Deckard was in a coma still. As soon as he woke up, something would need to be done. However, he could pretend he didn¡¯t know who was inside the braincase until then.


    Shaking his head, he cleared the extraneous thoughts from his mind and focused on the menu. After a moment, he selected ¡®Build More¡¯, and then special nanites. It seemed like all the other functions needed more special nanites -whatever those were- before they could become active.


    With that done, he closed the menu and looked down at his ankles. A quick sniff of his armpit confirmed what he already knew. It was time for a shower.


    Gingerly, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and over the next minute, he gradually increased the pressure and weight on his ankles. The bruising and pain from those injuries was still all there. The damage that his ankles and the ligaments had suffered all seemed to be better. Even after he stood and took a couple of steps, they felt fine.


    It was the bruising that still hurt, not his ankles. There was some tenderness from the operational scar areas, but that was it.


    Trace took a few more careful steps around the bedroom before he was satisfied that the nanites had indeed healed the damage. He took a moment to rifle through the pile of clean clothes and grabbed a pair of pants along with a shirt. The owner of the apartment had been a little bigger than him. It wasn¡¯t too egregious, and Trace was used to buying clothes that were too large for his body.


    When money was tight, you bought whatever was cheap and available. Size was mostly secondary, as long as a belt could make it work and the pant legs weren¡¯t too long, then it fit. Compared to some of the clothes he had in his own closet, these clothes were practically made for him.


    All they needed was a belt and some boots to be comfortable. The pants were just an inch or two too long at the inseam. As for the shirts, they were just a single size too large. He would be more than happy to steal the entire contents of this fellow''s closet when the time came for him to leave.


    He threw his dirty clothes in the pile of existing dirty clothes in the corner and headed to the shower.


    Thankfully, the shower was actually a sani-spray dispenser and not a water shower. Some of the apartments he had been in before had some of those foul contraptions. It had been near impossible to get the smell and slimy film off his body and out of his hair.


    Sani-spray dispenser showers, on the other hand, sprayed a fine mist of sanitizing solution. They might not be as satisfying as a water shower, but the sense of cleanliness you achieved was second to none.


    When he stepped out of the bathroom, a few minutes later, he was feeling much better. Being clean again just had a sort of effect on your mental health that couldn¡¯t be properly explained until you experienced its effects firsthand.


    Now, he just needed to decide on what his next move was going to be.


    While he was thinking about that, Trace grabbed all of the dirty clothes and shoved them down the cleaning chute. Then it was time for another marble, drink, and food. He had eaten more over the last few days than he could ever remember eating.


    He had been ignoring the message that had come in from Stick-Point a few hours after Ko had left. Now that he knew he was able to walk around, it was time to face his wrath and confirm the details for the second job.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    ¡®Just heard back from Sevorah and Devko. The word is that you look like a bag of drek that was left to ferment outside for too long. Let this be a lesson to you on the dangers of taking leaps of faith. Regardless, the contract has been fulfilled, and I handed over everything you included in the data prism. The client was very happy with several of the files you included and has added a hefty bonus as promised. Make sure to delete all the information you gathered from the target¡¯s computer. Never keep that sort of data for longer than you need to.¡¯


    After that was a notification for an incoming credit deposit for the amount of thirteen hundred and fifty credits. He nearly swallowed his tongue when he saw the amount. The bonus they had tacked on practically doubled the job¡¯s original promised pay of seven hundred credits.


    Another message from Stick-Point was sitting beneath the transfer, that he hadn¡¯t even realized was there. Since he had ignored the first message, it hadn¡¯t notified him of the subsequent messages, either.


    ¡®I got the system-breacher module back. Good work on this job. Send me a message when you can so we can talk about the second job. I can hold it for a bit if you want, but not for long. Let me know.¡¯


    Trace walked into the office and looked over the rifles that were hanging on the wall. They were all certainly in better condition than the ones he had back at his own apartment. Did he really want to use someone else¡¯s weapons though? That felt like going a step too far for some reason. Wearing their clothes, using their teaching modules, all of that was fine.


    Weapons though¡­ Those were personal, and without confirmation that the man was dead, he just didn¡¯t know.


    For the moment, he decided to just leave them all alone. Maybe later he would come back for them. Right now, though, it just didn¡¯t feel right.


    Trace headed over to the drawer with all of the modules and pulled out a few. There was a spare system¡¯s breaching module that he snagged along with several teaching modules. He was heading back to his apartment and wouldn¡¯t be back at this one for a few days, at least. It made sense to grab everything he needed now.


    Trace replaced the two teaching modules he had already stored in his system and then closed the drawer. Gathering up his bags, he stuffed as many of the more durable-looking clothes as he could into one of them, along with the braincase. In another went all the remaining food, drinks, and titanium. The duffel bag he left alone; all the various modules he had grabbed would go in his courier bag.


    In other words, he looked absolutely ridiculous, but what else was new?


    The final item was simply making sure that the place was firmly locked up behind him as he left. Then he calmly walked out and headed for the elevators.


    Trace kept his eyes wide open and constantly scanning until he had left the building behind. It had taken him several days, far more than he initially intended, but he had gotten away clean.


    Back at his apartment, Trace pushed open a partially destroyed door to an utter mess. The electronics he had taken apart and then stored for disposal in the crate were strewn all over the front section. Farther in, he saw that things only got worse. The table had been reduced to kindling, and his lumpy couch had more holes than pieces of stuffing left in it.


    The door to the fridge had been ripped off, and the contents stolen.


    The inside of his room was an absolute mess, and it only then occurred to him how it must have looked to Ko. He had been trying to hide the braincase by piling everything on the bed. But she wouldn¡¯t have known that.


    Now, all those items had been flung everywhere, without a care for their condition. Pushing the bed to the side, he found the original hiding spot for the braincase. Ko had found it readily enough. Apparently, it was too good of a hiding spot for the scavs. All of the data prisms he had taken from them were still hidden in the hole.


    Really, they hadn¡¯t taken much. A lot had been destroyed, but that was it. All of the items he had stolen from them were still here. Either they had been interrupted, which considering how low the rent for this place was, he doubted. Or, they had been solely focused on retrieving a singular item. The question was what was it? The data prisms, or the braincase?


    All he knew was that he wouldn¡¯t be staying at this apartment any longer. He had meant to find a new place to live after the job with the scavs. Now that need had just crept to the top of his list. He would use the other apartment in the meantime. The place was comfortable.


    With that decided, he began ferrying trash out of the apartment and down to the chute, one armload at a time. He repaired the crate and every time he found something that he was going to keep; it went inside the crate. The weapons and loose ammunition were first, followed by the first-aid kits. A couple of his better tools went next, followed by the data prisms and his undergarments. That was really it, outside of a few knickknacks.


    His entire life in the apartment filled just over half the crate. All his clothes were in terrible condition, so he was just going to keep wearing the other fellows. The tech was all getting thrown out. He had nothing else.


    With a strange sense of hollowness, he broke the rental agreement and called for a van to come and pick him up.


    He had known, or at least strongly suspected, his apartment would be targeted by the scavs. The fact that it had wasn¡¯t surprising, but how violating it felt to be targeted in this manner. He had been robbed before, and his apartment had been broken into several times before. Those were simply a fact of life when you lived in this part of Denver.


    Trace had never been targeted by a specific group before, especially not one that had followed through on their threats. It left him feeling less than stellar.


    He thumbed the button for the elevator; the doors grinding as they opened right away. It was already on his floor, likely from when he had used it last, considering how often the fracking thing broke down. Pushing the crate inside, he pushed the button for the ground floor.


    The doors squealed as they slowly ground closed, and then nothing happened.


    With a grunt of annoyance, he kicked the wall just beneath the buttons. With a shudder, the elevator began to go down.


    It figures that he would finally figure out how to get the stupid thing to work after it had been stuck right as he was moving. Isn¡¯t that just the way life works?


    The van was already sitting there waiting for him when he rolled the crate out and a minute later he was on his way back to what he now considered his apartment.

 Divergence Three

    In the late 1920s Howard Hughe¡¯s company, Hughe¡¯s Aircraft began work on a racing aircraft. It was designed from the ground up to be as streamlined as they could make it, while also using the latest technology. The Hughes H-1 Racer was the resulting finished creation in 1929.


    The company created numerous groundbreaking technologies to achieve its dream. It had everything from exactingly machined rivets that left the aluminum skin smooth to the touch, to retractable landing gears. It was a marvel of engineering, and it was all done in a bid to reduce drag.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    It was modified further with exchangeable wings; different sets were designed for different purposes. One was high-speed, while another was for long-distance travel. Everything in its design was being done in the name of efficiency toward their overall goal.


    It was one they achieved.


    The H-1 smashed the previous over-landplane record of 314.32 mph, by clocking in at 352.39 mph.


    Hughes crashed the plane into a field after the test as it had run out of fuel. He is recorded as saying, ¡°We can fix her; she¡¯ll go faster.¡±


    Which they did, and then they moved onto a joint project with some of the other greatest minds of their generation. The result shook the world.

 Chapter 20

    The buzzer sounded along with a small electrical jolt as Trace failed to properly match the form of the sniper. A flare of anger rushed through him as the electricity ruined his focus even more. He thought he had done everything correctly. So, what had he missed?


    A yellow arrow highlighted the dial on the side of the scope. He had forgotten to adjust the scope properly for distance. Or was that one for wind? He couldn¡¯t remember at the moment.


    He had hopped into the teaching module almost immediately after getting back, and his mind was fried.


    It had taught him a lot. The courses transferring the skills and muscle memory as they taught him, and he put in the equivalent amount of effort. It was an amazing system to be sure, but it wasn¡¯t perfect. It was up to him to put in the actual effort to learn everything or it wouldn¡¯t transfer the knowledge properly.


    That was likely what had happened with the scope. He had gotten distracted or thought it hadn¡¯t mattered. Now he realized just how much it did.


    Regardless, he needed a break.


    If this was going to be his new apartment for the time being, then he might as well start to make it feel like his. That meant cleaning it up and getting rid of all the dust. Then came the matter of unpacking.


    He didn¡¯t have much, and most of what he did have would go inside the office. There were a few items that would go to other places. Such as his stolen trophies from the apartment above, well, the non-destroyed ones in any case. Those could be placed in tasteful locations, or more likely, he would simply keep them in the duffel bag at the bottom of the crate until he sold them. Taking them out was just asking for them to be seen and noticed.


    Trace made another marble from the titanium slivers. As he did, he noticed that he had already worked his way through a fourth of the pile. The marbles made it much easier to swallow the metal, and he had started to make faster progress after that. Forming them wasn¡¯t the easiest, especially after he moved away from the thinner pieces. The tools he had brought from his old apartment helped there though.


    He swallowed the marble down and grabbed the bag with his food and drink. It was past time to put everything in the fridge.


    Opening the door to the half-size fridge, he saw the same rows of food-in-a-can that he had before. There were several more lines of lemon-flavored soda, stacked two high. Beneath that were a few burritos and sandwiches that had yet to reach their expiration dates despite having been bought nearly a month earlier.


    Trace moved the older items to the front and stuffed his newer items in at the back. Grabbing a soda and food-in-a-can before closing the door.


    He needed to start cleaning the guns he had brought back with him. The ammo he had already added to the appropriate drawers of ammunition. Unfortunately, there hadn¡¯t been anything for the revolver, not that he had truly been expecting to find anything.


    He cleared away everything from the top of the desk, save for the computer monitor, and brought out his cleaning supplies. Soon enough, there were bits of grime, dried blood, mud, and who knew what else littering the surface. He had been forced to take everything from a small pick to a wire brush to the two guns he had saved as he cleaned them.


    It was worth it as they each gradually became something he wouldn¡¯t mind firing. Thanks to the new knowledge he had gained from the teaching module, he even understood which parts needed to be replaced. The mods he had removed from the other guns went through a similar cleaning experience.


    The spare semi-automatic handgun and the rifle both cleaned up nicely. However, it was also clear they had been ridden hard and hung up wet. There was only so much he could do. There was pitting all along the surface of their barrels. Thankfully, that turned out to be mostly cosmetic. The barrel interiors were still good. So, while the durability of the barrels might have gone down some, it shouldn¡¯t be by much.


    He laid out the mods and spare parts as he slowly put the two guns back together. Miraculously, when he was done, they both connected to his eyes without a problem. The linked aiming reticles would be a game changer, not as much as before, but they would still help. He could already tell that his aim had improved by leaps and bounds, and that was before getting the enhanced teaching module.


    Learning the proper basics truly did make a difference.


    The scout rifle was set up for quick disassembly, along with a full scope, proper windage meter, and a few other mods that had turned it into a rather decent sniper rifle.


    Its power was lacking compared to a real sniper rifle, and its range wouldn¡¯t be as good. However, considering his aim wasn¡¯t perfect, that was probably a good thing.


    He placed both guns to the side and swept the garbage into the trash.


    The ¡®Knives & Not Dying¡¯ teaching module had finished getting absorbed and was now in the process of being recompiled.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Trace ejected the teaching module and inserted the next one on his list. After that, he checked the status ¡®Build More¡¯ order of the ¡®Nanites¡¯ and found that it had been completed a while before. Unfortunately, it hadn¡¯t made a difference. The other menu options were still disabled. He still needed more special nanites. He selected the same option again and closed out the menu.


    Forming another couple of titanium marbles, he guzzled them down with a food-in-a-can. He ignored the familiar warnings that popped up in the corner of his vision related to the bio-chemical drugs that had been found in the drink.


    Falling onto the bed, he remained coherent long enough to pull his boots off, and that was it.


    ***


    ¡®Open up.¡¯


    Trace stared at the message from Ko in confusion for a few seconds before the apartment doorbell rang.


    Well, this was going to be interesting. He had no intention of hiding the fact that he was walking around from her. Which meant she would know his ligaments and ankles were better than when she saw them a couple of days earlier.


    Something that should have been impossible without expensive stimulant healing products.


    He wasn¡¯t sure what to tell her, but hiding how much better he was doing was out of the question.


    Trace wiped his suddenly sweaty hands on his shirt, as he stopped at the front door a surge of anxiety shot through him.


    Without giving himself too much time to think about it, he ordered the door to slide open and took a step back.


    Ko walked into the apartment; her eyes locked on his ankles. On her back was a bag full of supplies. ¡°I swung by your apartment again to see if there was anything else you might need or want. Imagine my surprise to find it cleared out, and the front door hanging from a single busted hinge.¡±


    She managed to pack a lot of feeling into that slightly robotic voice of hers.


    Trace winced and waved her inside the apartment. ¡°Yeah, I uh, went back there yesterday and found the place had been broken into. I¡¯m assuming it was done by the scavs I accidentally crossed, but there¡¯s no way to say for sure.¡±


    The door slid shut behind her with a click.


    ¡°I figured as much. I wasn¡¯t quite sure of what to make about it having been cleared out, but that part was easy to understand. Scavs go for people and their augments, not random junk in an apartment. Did they take anything?¡± Her glowing green eyes were still focused on his ankles and were pulsing subtly as they ran through one of their built-in sensor suites.


    ¡°Not that I could see. They didn¡¯t even bother taking either of the guns or ammo I had on the table. The first aid kits were left alone as well.¡±


    ¡°Hmm,¡± Her eyes continued to flash. ¡°Boots and pants off, now.¡±


    ¡°Um, boots I can do, but pants might be a bit of a problem,¡± He admitted shyly.


    Trace had been fine wearing the apartment owner¡¯s pants and shirts, but not his underwear. He was currently going commando at the moment.


    It took her a second to understand what he was implying.


    ¡°Go put some underclothes on. I need to examine you!¡±


    He was left chuckling as he hurried into the bedroom to change. When he emerged a minute later, it was to her direct scrutiny.


    ¡°The bruising is still there,¡± She promptly poked him, eliciting a hiss of pain. Yup, those hadn¡¯t been healed. ¡°And they don¡¯t seem to have been healed. However, the ligaments around your ankles are all back to normal. No healing stimulant would have done this, they aren¡¯t this localized. There would have been some bleed-over healing into the deep bruising areas.¡± She was mostly talking to herself as she went about her examination of him.


    Trace was doing his best to ignore everything she was doing, otherwise the situation would get awkward fast.


    ¡°Can I put my pants back on now?¡± He asked after she had finally stopped poking at him.


    ¡°Hmm? Oh, sure,¡± She nodded, and he quickly ran away to change.


    Ko paid his desire for privacy no mind as she followed him into the bedroom. Working in a mender¡¯s clinic, she had probably seen people¡¯s bodies in every single state he could imagine. There was nothing sexy about any of them, either. Being in that profession would require a certain amount of detachment otherwise, you would have a hard time working on others.


    Once he realized that, Trace actually felt a little better about the situation and began to relax.


    ¡°Can you tell me how you managed to heal yourself in such a manner?¡± She asked, opening the cleaning chute that had been blinking for the last while.


    Inside the chute, the clothes he had tossed down it earlier had all been cleaned and returned to the apartment. It was such an easy and efficient method that the only real drawback was that you needed a decent pile of clothes to make the service worth it.


    The question brought Trace up short in the middle of buttoning his pants. ¡°That is a rather complicated and potentially dangerous question.¡± He replied after a moment. ¡°I can tell you¡­ Just know that it comes with, I guess you could call them strings attached. Potentially useful strings, but strings nonetheless.¡±


    In the upper left corner of his vision, there was a notification from the nanites.


    - User is allowed to inform the trainee-mender about the existence of the G.H.O.S.T. System, on the condition she accepts a portion of the System into herself


    - Her help in waking the host would be beneficial


    Ko tossed the clothes onto the bed beside the pile of clean clothes that he had been sleeping beside the last few days. He really needed to do something about all of those. There was a perfectly good closet right there, after all.


    ¡°I can¡¯t say as though I particularly like that thought.¡± She leaned against the wall, her green eyes locked on his. ¡°How potentially useful are we talking here?¡± She asked after a moment.


    ¡°Hard to say for sure. It¡¯s something that I only recently came across myself, but so far it looks like it has the potential to change the direction of my life completely. It can also just as easily ensure I end up dead though if the wrong people hear about it.¡± Trace cracked his neck and opened the closest. There was no time to get started on putting the clothes away like the present.


    She wordlessly came over and helped him to put everything away. ¡°Alright,¡± She said after they had finished. ¡°I¡¯m interested. Hopefully, this isn¡¯t a mistake on my part. But let¡¯s do this. Show me where to tie these strings on.¡±


    Trace nodded and brought her into the office where the braincase was sitting on the desk.


    ¡°Put your finger in the nutrient hole,¡± He told her with a slight grimace, fully aware of how stupid it sounded.


    ¡°That is not- No, never mind,¡± Ko shook her head and without any preamble stuck her middle finger into the hole. She jumped in surprise when something clamped down on her finger and refused to let go.

 Celebrating My Birthday With A Giant Sale!

    Hi everyone! In celebration of my birthday, nearly all of my books are on sale for 99cents. This sale lasts only one day and happens on the 9th for those in the USA and on the 10th for those in the UK.


    Make sure to grab any books that you don''t yet have while they are cheap.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.https://www.amazon.com/author/joshuakern


    You can ignore everything beneath this point, as it is merely filler.


    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    ¡°You really have a mouth on you,¡± Trace said after Ko was finally able to retrieve her freed finger. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever even heard half of those curses before, and I grew up on the streets.¡±


    ¡°That wasn¡¯t funny, Trace! What just happened?¡± She was examining her finger and the rapidly diminishing ring of nanites that had been forcefully injected beneath her skin.

 Chapter 21

    ¡°You really have a mouth on you,¡± Trace said after Ko was finally able to retrieve her freed finger. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever even heard half of those curses before, and I grew up on the streets.¡±


    ¡°That wasn¡¯t funny, Trace! What just happened?¡± She was examining her finger and the rapidly diminishing ring of nanites that had been forcefully injected beneath her skin.


    ¡°You need to give it a few minutes, and then you¡¯ll feel it crawling up your neck and beginning to connect to your NetConnect and then up into your eyes.¡±


    ¡°That still doesn¡¯t tell me what that was!¡± She growled. ¡°Is this why you wanted to keep the braincase?¡±


    ¡°A large part of it, yeah. But I was serious when I mentioned what the scavs had been doing with it. Whether or not they want it back¡­ I don¡¯t know. All their information was on the data prisms I have, not inside the CPU component. That said, a braincase acting as a server is probably worth a lot more than a normal computer.¡±


    Her eyes were wide as she looked at him and slowly shook her head in amazement. ¡°You didn¡¯t know?¡±


    ¡°Know what?¡±


    ¡°Saying a braincase as a CPU is worth a lot more is a severe understatement. This thing right here, to the scavs, is probably worth between five hundred thousand and a million credits. They are rare, illegal to use that way, and there are no secondhand parts. Braincases can¡¯t be made, only bought through official channels. Which means everyone they get their hands on they treat like a prize.¡± She snorted. ¡°Frack, I probably underestimated the worth to them by a couple of million credits.¡±


    Trace felt the blood drain from his face at the enormity of the numbers she had just given him. They were too high. That was the sort of money normal people would be plenty willing to kill for. The scavs would be preparing to go to war at this point.


    ¡°At least they aren¡¯t sure I have it,¡± He squeaked out weakly.


    ¡°Yeah, we¡¯ll see if that even matters.¡± She reached up and began to scratch lightly at her neck. ¡°I think it¡¯s starting. I feel a pressure crawling up my neck reaching for my NetConnect.¡±


    ¡°Well, don¡¯t try to fight it or anything silly like that. It¡¯s a little unpleasant, I know, but trust me, you¡¯ll like what is to come.¡±


    Her eyes narrowed at that promise. ¡°I¡¯m not sure we know each other well enough for you to make that sort of guarantee.¡±


    He shrugged. ¡°I could make that promise to someone I have never met before, and it would be just as valid.¡±


    A minute later, she began to blink furiously, as the nanites connected to her eyes.


    In the corner of Trace¡¯s vision, a notification appeared.


    - Connection to the individual known as Devko Park has been established


    - Devko Park has been registered as a sub-user, with all appropriate permissions


    - Construction of nanite production facility required


    - Titanium material is requested through the stomach distribution port


    - Integration of G.H.O.S.T. System has begun


    Right below that message, there was a loading bar that ever so slowly ticked its way up to completion. Through his own connection, he was able to keep track of her progress. Apparently, she had been made a sub-user, compared to his own regular user status. Whatever that actually meant though, he had no idea.


    ¡°Trace,¡± Ko whispered dangerously. ¡°Why is there something in the corner of my vision talking about nanites?¡±


    He jumped forward and clapped his hand over her mouth. ¡°Are you stupid or something? Why would you ever say that word out loud? You know the restrictions the steel goddess put on anything even remotely close to them.¡±


    She kneed him in the chest and pushed him away. ¡°Fine! But get talking! What is going on?¡±


    He gasped for breath and waved her away. ¡°Wait until the system has been fully integrated. Then you can ask it questions yourself.¡±


    For the next half-hour, she glared at him in silence, waiting for the system to finish integrating. As soon as she received the message that it had finished, the first question out of her mouth was similar to what his had been. Though far more colorful.


    ¡°Well, that answers absolutely nothing, even if it does sound sort of cool.¡± She admitted after reading the name, finally having cooled down some.


    - Bringing sub-user Devko Park¡¯s G.H.O.S.T. System online now


    Trace was shown a snapshot image of what her menu was shown like, obviously all in red, and immediately noted a number of differences. The NetConnection selection was now missing entirely from the menu tree, while each of the other selections had been trimmed down to fit her specific needs. The nanites had known that Ko was a trainee-mender, and the remaining options were all geared toward helping her become a better one.


    His menu allowed him to become anything if he wanted to spend the time and effort. Hers was oriented toward helping her become better in the field she had already chosen. The mental options for dealing with any problems that arose from cyberware, of course, remained.


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    He had a feeling that this was how it was meant to be distributed to people.


    The G.H.O.S.T. System was meant to help people become better in their careers and to help them heal. It wasn¡¯t meant for them to become these all-powerful beings that could do everything. Knowing that, or rather guessing that, but feeling secure in his guess, made a knot that had existed in his chest since he got it, loosen and start to unravel.


    Ko spent a few wordless minutes going through the different options. Spending far more time than he had inspecting each of them and what they might mean for her.


    ¡°I think that saying I¡¯ll like this or that it¡¯ll be useful is a severe understatement,¡± She said at last. ¡°This system could change everything, for everyone! Why wasn¡¯t it ever released? And why is everything in red?¡±


    ¡°Everything is in red because you can¡¯t access those functions just yet. It needs to build the production facility first, and then it needs to create more of them. Both of which require materials.¡± Trace held up a piece of titanium. ¡°Guess what their favorite food is? As for your first question, it was never released because it was never finished. One of its developers was killed before that could happen.¡±


    ¡°Who could possibly have the knowledge and ability to create something like this?¡± She asked in an awed whisper.


    ¡°No one these days, that¡¯s for sure. This thing is over a hundred years old.¡± Her head snapped up to look at him. ¡°It was created by Meredith Koarden, and her son, Deckard Koarden.¡± As he said Deckard¡¯s name, Trace pointedly tapped on the braincase.


    ¡°Wait, you don¡¯t mean? Is that?¡±


    He nodded.


    Her face paled as she glanced upward, as though her eyes could pierce through the layers of concrete and allow her to see the satellites far above them.


    ¡°I told you there would be strings attached, one of which is helping to ensure that he wakes up from his coma safely.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not a string! That¡¯s a fracking noose!¡± She hissed angrily. ¡°If- No, when she finds out he is still alive and down here, she is going to do everything she can to retrieve him.¡±


    ¡°I know. That¡¯s why we need to keep him safe. Can you imagine what would happen if someone captured him and tried to leverage him against her?¡±


    Ko started pacing around the room, her mind a confused mess. This was a lot for anyone to simply have dumped on them, and he understood that better than most.


    It took her nearly twenty-minutes to calm down, and even then, it wasn¡¯t by much. Her eyes promised nothing but pain to him.


    ¡°Would you quit glaring at me like that!¡± He finally snapped at her. ¡°You¡¯re the one who agreed to stick her finger in the braincase. I didn¡¯t force you to do it. I even told you there would be strings attached if you followed through with it. So, don¡¯t go acting like I¡¯m the villain here. It was your choice to do it, and if you would quit acting like such a self-entitled brat, you would realize just how great of an opportunity this really is.¡±


    Unsurprisingly, that didn¡¯t go over well with her, and she stormed out of the apartment a moment later.


    Whatever, he wasn¡¯t going to worry about it. She knew the stakes involved and wasn¡¯t stupid. Ko wouldn¡¯t go blabbing to everyone. It might take a while for her to calm down, but once she did, she would begin to experiment with the system just like he was. When that happened, she would be back.


    With that matter settled, Trace popped out the latest teaching module the system had absorbed and enhanced for his use. Unfortunately, it was also the last one he could fit inside the limited space of the NetConnect partition it had created. He would need to get more storage and universal memory before he could add more.


    Either that or simply delete one of them.


    The only one that was really an option for that was his enhanced intermediate programming. He hadn¡¯t even finished the basic programming course, though he was a little over halfway through it. The rest of the modules he had loaded were related to fighting and not dying. Something that he was generally quite excited on learning how to do better, in both regards.


    After he put the module away, he took a couple of minutes to create several more titanium marbles. They were easy enough to slip down his throat that he almost didn¡¯t mind how odd the action itself was.


    He still needed food and soda, of course, to fully wash them down, but his body was craving the nutrients anyway.


    It might be time for him to start looking into getting some nutrient gels or vitamin shots. He¡¯d have to ask Sevorah or Ko the next time he saw one of them.


    For the moment, he had a job he needed to concentrate on.


    Which meant eating some more and then hopping back into the training module. Before he did that though, he noticed that the other options in his own G.H.O.S.T. System menu had finally been unlocked. It seemed that running the ¡®Build More¡¯ three times in a row was the magic minimum number.


    There were still plenty of options in the further menu trees that were in red, but the base selections were now selectable at least.


    There were a few that he was tempted to select, yet he found himself holding back. There was no manual that came with this system, and while some of the names were somewhat self-explanatory, not all of them were. What if he selected ¡®Enhance¡¯ under ¡®Body¡¯, and it did nothing since he had no cyberware throughout the rest of his body. Would he get the nanites back, or would it even let him select the option? There was only one way to find out, and he found himself leery to try it.


    He didn¡¯t think it would enhance his fleshware though. There was already an option for that under ¡®Nanite¡¯. However, it was entirely possible that they simply worked on different parts of the body. Again, he had no idea, and it was infuriating to him.


    The nanites also weren¡¯t giving him any hints at the moment, no matter how many times he asked them. It had worked the first time around; it was only now that they were choosing not to answer him. Well, maybe not choosing to not answer him, as he didn¡¯t think they had that much ability. It was more that they were ignoring him for some reason.


    He had no idea what was going on with them. So, he put the decision on hold for the moment by instead choosing to build more of the special nanites.


    With that order now in progress, his mind vanished into the teaching module for guns. He ran through the entire program just to be sure he knew the information before entering the virtual gun range. What was being taught was the basic information. Knowledge that pertained to most guns. The program didn¡¯t teach him how to field strip and care for anything exotic or outside the base specs.


    What it did do was drill those base specs into him. The module had him clean, strip, repair, fire, and modify each of the base guns in its arsenal. There were a lot of basic guns, and they ran the gamut in size and utility. Handgun, rifle, sniper rifle. It had it all. At some point in the last fifty years, there had been a basic version of nearly every gun that eventually went on to become an exotic modification.


    The exotic guns in this case were those that were purely railguns or laser-based. The dangerous, but slow-to-fire type of guns.

 Chapter 22

    By the next morning, Trace had spent a considerable amount of time inside the virtual gun range. His body was sick and tired of getting shocked every time he got something wrong. Somewhat miraculously, he had started to get more things right as a result.


    His aim had improved significantly, and his form had seen a quantitative improvement. He was by no means a qualified sniper. However, in the space of a few days, he had gone from someone who could barely hit a target ten feet in front of him to an actual decent shot.


    Regardless, he decided that it was time to make an attempt at completing the second job he had been given. Stick-Point wouldn¡¯t give him any more jobs until he had finished both jobs, and he had a pretty hefty debt hanging over his head that he needed to pay off.


    Trace grabbed the scout rifle and disassembled it to store inside his courier bag. He needed to make a stop by the nearest gun shop and get a suppressor for it, and then he could move into position.


    He pulled up the information on the job as he rode the elevator down.


    There wasn¡¯t much to it. The client just wanted the target iced quietly, preferably at their home. No sticky fingers allowed. This was a statement piece, despite the low difficulty and resulting low pay.


    That was where the scout rifle came into play. He would see if he could eliminate the target from a distance, using it as a sniper rifle. If not, then he would need to get up close and personal. There was a greater chance he would be seen that way. More mess and fuss.


    Sniping would be easier all around. Thankfully, this model would connect to his eyes, something he had been deliberately avoiding doing inside the virtual training sessions. He wanted it to help, not be a crutch he depended on. He had lived without the ability to connect with his targeting reticles for this long. Granted, his aim had sucked, but that had at least partially been a lack of knowledge and training.


    The nearest gun store turned out to be just outside the doors of the apartment building, which was rather nice. He walked in, and a minute later, walked out a little poorer, and with a new suppressor. Interestingly enough, the threading for the barrel of the scout rifle was only a little larger than what his semi-auto needed. So, he bought an adapter to use it for that gun as well. It wouldn¡¯t be quite as effective due to the improper sizing, but that was fine.


    It took him some time to get to the target¡¯s location, which was an apartment building with a club that operated out of the bottom four floors. Just thinking about living in such a place had Trace reaching for his earplugs. Buildings like this always said they had great soundproofing, and yet somehow even the top floors always managed to hear the noise from the club below.


    Trace entered the building across from it and rode the elevator to the roof. From there, he used the magnification ability in his eyes to look across and locate the appropriate apartment. Thankfully, this building was several floors shorter than the other one.


    After he found the right apartment, he pulled out the rifle scope to get a better look. It was then that he remembered something he had managed to forget rather spectacularly. The windows of any apartment in the city were going to be thick and virtually bulletproof. The bullets his scout rifle was firing might scratch them, but that would be about it.


    If he wanted to do some proper sniping, then he would need something far more powerful than what he currently had. Or he would need to get lucky. Which wasn¡¯t the case this time. All the windows were closed, leaving him with no easy shots.


    The sniper rifle back at the apartment fired specialized piercing rounds for exactly this sort of situation. However, he really didn¡¯t want to touch the other man¡¯s guns until he knew for sure that he was dead.


    Putting the scope away, Trace cracked his neck and stood. Ever since getting the new NetConnect, his neck had been sore more often.


    Regardless, this job would have to be done up close and personal. He opened his courier bag and checked the side pocket to make sure the module he needed was still there. He had put a few of them in there before, one of which was the system-breaching module he had swiped from the drawer back at the apartment.


    If he was going to sneak into the target¡¯s apartment, then he was going to need the system-breaching module. Breaching systems was not part of his skillset, and he wasn¡¯t sure if it ever would be.


    His programming lessons had revealed a few things to him about himself and the way he thought. Once something was shown to him when it came to programming, he could understand it fairly quickly. However, that was not the mental framework he needed for original, creative programming and finding the loopholes that a breacher programmer needed to be proficient in.


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    It was fine for repairing broken technology, which was why he had originally wanted to learn how to program. Now, he wasn¡¯t sure if that was going to be enough anymore. The introduction of the G.H.O.S.T. System had changed a few things for him. He would always enjoy working on that stuff, but it no longer felt like the end goal for that part of his life.


    Back down on street level, he avoided the entrance to the club and took the main entrance to the building.


    Trace was uncomfortably aware of all the cameras monitoring him and everyone else who passed by. Unlike the ones in his new apartment building, these were actually plugged into the system and working. Supposedly, his mil-spec eyes came with the minor ability to blur his face. However, it was also old tech and not something he wanted to depend on if he could help it.


    Besides, there was a lot recognizable about him, even if you discounted his face, and some security cameras had enough resolution to pick up a target¡¯s fingerprint just from the video. Granted, not many places recorded video in that high of quality due to storage issues, but it was always a concern.


    The best thing he could do was get off at a different floor and then find another way down.


    Such was the life of a wraith.


    The cost of being silent and invisible was finding a way around all of these difficulties on his side. Of course, that was generally why wraith jobs paid so much better than the other specialties. The training required to do them well was on a whole other level. You weren¡¯t simply one thing. Most edgers who attempted to become wraiths eventually washed out and became something else instead. He was determined not to let that happen to him.


    His little trip to the other building had been recon for this eventuality and not just searching for an easy sniper¡¯s perch. He had been able to look over the outside of the building and see how everything was put together.


    There were the usual balconies and windows/doors with the buttons by their sides. However, he had noticed something interesting about those buttons as he was looking the place over. The button on the topmost club floor had been pulled apart. Hidden behind the basic button was the data port he hadn¡¯t been able to find earlier.


    With that information now at his disposal, he had a possible method of entry. All he had to do was find a way to get down to the balcony without killing himself and an empty apartment. He wasn¡¯t willing to take a second leap of faith. One of those had been plenty for him.


    Closing his eyes, Trace mentally went through each of the apartments on the floors above his target. He was looking for one that had its lights out and also looked like no one was home. The two weren¡¯t always synonymous with each other.


    He found a possible apartment three floors above the target. Next, he began looking for anything that would get him down to the target¡¯s floor and over to the balcony. Either a lot of rope, or suction devices, though he wouldn¡¯t really trust the latter in the windy, sand and dust-ridden environment that was Denver. Who knew when the last time the windows had been washed was, if ever?


    Not that he was likely to find suction devices just lying around anyway. Rope, there was a better chance, though, probably not in the lengths he needed.


    Trace found several lengths of rope, along with climbing suction cups in the fourth supply closet he tried. Apparently, this building did have its windows cleaned, though judging by the dust on the items themselves, it wasn¡¯t often. Regardless, they were his now, permanently. The climbing equipment consisted of three different components. A pair of gloves, kneepads, and a set of odd-looking cups that attached to the front of whatever boots you were already wearing.


    The rope would be useful on future jobs, and the suction cups were worth his weight in credits.


    The only bad thing is, they didn¡¯t really fit in his bag. That meant he would be left carrying it all out in the open unless he could find something else to cover it all with. Normally, he would have put it in the duffel bag he used for the goodies he acquired during a job. Except that was specifically mentioned as being not something he could do during this job.


    That left him stealing everything else that was in the room that might hide the actual items. In other words, a bucket, a few towels, and a pair of overalls.


    With those in hand, he kept his head low, hat angled, and headed for the stairs.


    One floor down, he used the sensor suite in his eyes to make sure the apartment was empty before breaking in.


    Once he was inside the apartment, Trace came to a realization that had him making a note to himself for later.


    ALWAYS BRING THE DUFFEL BAG!


    Even if he couldn¡¯t grab anything from the target, there were always going to be incidentals along the way. Look at what had happened on this job. He already had several items he wanted to keep. Not to mention, he was now in an apartment that he could most definitely grab things from if he wanted to.


    He would need to find out about the owner first and determine for himself how scummy they were. Assuming he could find a bag among their belongings to make any of the effort worth it.


    First though, he had a job to do.


    Trace grabbed the suppressor from his courier bag and attached it to the semi-auto that was on his thigh. The suppressor stuck out the bottom, and he would need to be more careful when he drew the gun. However, at least he wouldn¡¯t need to worry about putting it on in a rush later.


    The system breaching module was already in one of his neck ports from when he opened the door to the apartment.


    All he had left to do was go outside and get down to the right balcony. To get outside, he had to pop the cover off the button that led out to the balcony and jack into it. It took a few moments, but soon enough, the glass balcony door slid open for him.


    He tied the rope off to the side of the balcony and attached the suction cups to his feet, knees, and boots. With that done, he took hold of the rope and stepped off the side.


    Hanging there above balconies far below was a terrifying experience. He had to go down three floors and over five balconies. It was not going to be an easy climb, but he had several lengths of rope and the climbing suction cups which would help immensely.


    Honestly, if he hadn¡¯t found either of those items, the only other method of accomplishing the job would have been going in through the front door. Not exactly the best plan.

 Chapter 23

    Trace stopped once he was on the right balcony and simply took a few minutes to breathe. Doing all of this was hard work, and his body wasn¡¯t exactly in the best shape. Years of barely being able to afford the bare necessities nutrition-wise had done a real number on the condition of his everything. He was slim, well skinny, but had little actual muscle, and next to no stamina.


    The nanites had been working to improve the condition of his body, but they were obsessed with his bones at the moment. Anything they improved outside of his skeleton was incidental for now, it seemed. Perhaps later they would do more, but for now, at least, they had their work cut out for them, simply fixing whatever issues they had found in his bones.


    When he was ready, he pushed the button next to the door, hoping he would get lucky. There was no response.


    It was a matter of moments to pop off the button and reveal the data port hidden behind it. He jacked in and let the system breaching module do its thing.


    Drawing his suppressed semi-auto, he waited for the door to open before using his eyes to perform an S&R scan. There was one person in the apartment, currently lying down in what should be the bedroom.


    Satisfied with the target¡¯s location, he next scanned for cameras and other detection devices. It was only after he was sure that there was nothing there did he dare move farther into the apartment.


    Keeping his steps slow, and even, Trace slinked toward the target¡¯s bedroom.


    With a soft hiss, the doors to the room opened, and the previously sleeping target sprang into motion. The light sleeper rolled to the side and off the bed in one relatively smooth motion.


    Trace was too slow to get off a shot, so he held back off to the side and waited. He wanted to see what the target would do while running S&R scans every few seconds. As long as he didn¡¯t go overboard, his eyes wouldn¡¯t start to heat up from the constant scans, let alone risk getting overheated.


    Nearly thirty seconds passed in total silence before the target edged his head toward a thinner part of the mattress. It was good enough for Trace.


    His eyes were integrated into the targeting reticle on his semi-auto. Even if he hadn¡¯t been practicing, he could have made this shot. Probably. Now that he had been, it was practically a guaranteed thing. The reticle hit the spot where the mattress was thinnest, behind which the target''s head was, and he pulled the trigger.


    Due to the ill-fitting nature of the suppressor, the report of the shot was louder than he would have liked. Not that it was more than the equivalent of a regular person''s clap. It just sounded louder due to how silent the apartment was.


    Trace waited a few moments before entering the room to ensure the target was dead.


    Sure enough, his bullet had taken the target in the side of his head. A gun he had been in the process of loading was spread across the floor beside him. It was foolish not having it already loaded and ready for use. It wouldn¡¯t have saved him, but it would have kept him from looking like a total idiot in death.


    Whatever, he didn¡¯t care.


    Trace took multiple photos of the scene, making sure he had the target¡¯s face and the bullet hole in them.


    Leaving was as easy as retracing his steps. Granted, climbing back up was a little tougher, but not by much thanks to the suction equipment.


    Once he was back in the apartment several floors above the target, Trace searched for a bag to store everything in. A few minutes later, he was exiting the elevator and walking out of the building, dragging a suitcase behind him.


    The job hadn¡¯t gone quite as seamlessly as he would have preferred, but it had been better than the first. Not a high bar granted, but one he had still cleared, regardless.


    Trace waited until he was back at his apartment before sending the images to Stick-Point, along with a message letting him know the job had been completed. The new equipment, rope, and suction cup climbing pieces he found places in the office to store.


    The suitcase he left in the living room for the moment. He wasn¡¯t sure what to do with it, as he preferred the duffel bag that could be easily stored inside his courier bag. That said, he was smart enough to understand that the hard-shelled case had uses of its own.


    Within just a few minutes of sending the message, he received a surprised confirmation message back from Stick-Point. The older man had been under the impression that he was still laid up healing, and then suddenly the job was completed. It was a nice surprise for him.


    The credits came through to his account a few seconds later. Just like that, he was fifteen hundred credits richer.


    Another message followed a bit later, telling him to let the man know when he wanted more jobs.


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    A smile graced Trace¡¯s face as he relaxed in the office chair. He had done it. He had completed both jobs without disappointing him. It felt good.


    With that in mind, he would hold off on taking more jobs for the moment, he decided. He had three thousand credits in his account, which, while not necessarily a lot, was far more than he had ever had before. It would last him a few weeks minimum, depending on how careful he was with it, months if he needed it to.


    That wasn¡¯t what he had in mind though. This wasn¡¯t the time to be careful with money. No, now was the time to delve into the G.H.O.S.T. System and learn everything he could. It was time to get his body healed and back to a decent standard. Only then would he start taking jobs again.


    He had advantages at the moment, but he needed to actually use them, not just let them gather dust by the wayside.


    First up, he needed to contact Ko and get more titanium, along with seeing where she was at on the matter.


    ¡®How are you doing today?¡¯ He sent off the message to her and then turned on the computer on the desk.


    It was time to get more familiar with this thing. He had gotten tripped up last time because of his unfamiliarity with the system. For most things in day-to-day life, the NetConnect worked perfectly fine and there was no need for a full computer system. Sometimes, though, you simply needed more computing power or wanted to sit at a desk while you worked.


    Every time he compiled a program in his lessons, it was being throttled by the capabilities of his NetConnect. He could only assume that it was the same case for when the G.H.O.S.T. System recompiled one of the teaching modules. However, he doubted that it would ever offload anything to an unsecured system.


    The point was that a full computer had its uses, even if using one was unfamiliar to him.


    It was something that was easy enough to overcome by simply using one as much as possible.


    While he was using the computer, Trace had ordered the nanites to ¡®Build More¡¯ again. For the moment at least, it was his go-to option and was what he selected every time it was available. He doubted having more of the special nanites which the other options needed were a bad thing.


    At some point though, he was going to simply need to grit his teeth and choose one of them.


    ¡®Fine, I¡¯ve calmed down some. I¡¯m still not entirely alright with how it went down, but I can see how useful it will be. Learning of his identity freaked me out more than I wish to admit at the time.¡¯


    He quirked a brow at that. She had been plenty freaked out in his opinion, so if that was her holding back, then it must have been really bad.


    ¡®Are you going to use it?¡¯


    ¡®Yes. It would be stupid not to. I have to wait for the factory to be built first and then create all the other things. So, it will take a while yet.¡¯


    Good, she was being circumspect even with their messages and not outright mentioning what anything was.


    ¡®Well, you know where to find me. I¡¯ll probably be going more or less dark for a week or two as I dive into some of the menu¡¯s functions and teaching modules here. There is a lot I need to learn and while two weeks isn¡¯t enough time for anything, I have credits for that long. Speaking of which, can you have more titanium sent to the apartment?¡¯


    ¡®Done and be careful. We don¡¯t know what it does yet.¡¯


    ¡®I know. That¡¯s why I¡¯m doing it instead of you. So, hold off on being too adventurous until you hear back from me.¡¯


    ***


    Trace opened his eyes and rolled off the bed. His body popped and cracked a couple of times, but the number had been decreasing each day.


    - Skeletal System Repair (Percent Completed): 76%


    - Muscular System Repair (Percent Completed): 31%


    The speed at which his skeletal system repairs had been completed had slowed after it reached seventy-five percent. He wasn¡¯t sure why, and it didn¡¯t really concern him either. His bones felt stronger than ever, and the small stoop he had developed had completely vanished.


    Trace felt fantastic! The same went for his muscles. He had never been a muscular person, and he still wasn¡¯t. However, you could now see that he had muscles instead of just veins and bones.


    It had been a little over two weeks since he had completed the icework job. During that time, he had been running the teaching modules nearly constantly. He had completed the enhanced basic and intermediate programming courses, along with the enhanced guns, knives & and not dying. He hadn¡¯t touched the sword version of that particular course yet.


    After finishing them, he had deleted both of the programming courses and loaded up two modules on electrical engineering.


    He was honestly a little hesitant to get rid of the programming modules. As while he had completed them, he didn¡¯t feel confident in the knowledge just yet. His mind seemed to know what to do, but his fingers hadn¡¯t entirely caught onto that fact yet.


    It was the same with the items related to the guns and knives, at least to a degree. He had run through both of those modules enough times that his hands had begun adopting the information that his mind suddenly knew. The enhanced version of the modules helped to implant information on the subject into your mind. You had to be paying attention for it to work, but it helped you learn the subject far faster than before when it worked. However, even after that, it was still up to you to familiarize yourself with the information and movements needed to accomplish the required actions.


    Just because he suddenly knew how to field-strip and clean each of his guns, didn¡¯t mean he could do it proficiently. That only came with practice and fine motor control.


    What the last two weeks had done was make him more confident in his ability to handle certain situations. He had been exploring the computer when he wasn¡¯t actively learning in a module, and he had been actively researching different subjects whenever he had a free moment.


    Apparently, he had underestimated the effectiveness of the facial blurring that his new eyes were capable of. Due to them being a military model, there wasn¡¯t a lot of information to be found on their capabilities. A search that was hampered by the lack of any model specs on the info screen.


    Thankfully, Ko had been able to get a few details on it from Sevorah, and he had done the rest himself. It wasn¡¯t perfect, but it was the best he had access to.


    There were a few of them that had made their way into civilian hands. However, they were usually neutered in various ways, with fragments left in the coding that hinted at the hardware that had once been there. If Trace¡¯s guess was correct, and based on what he was reading, his eyes hadn¡¯t received that treatment. They were the complete, true mil-spec version.


    The model that was never supposed to reach civilian hands, and he really wanted to know how Sevorah had managed to get it.

 Chapter 24

    Trace swallowed another marble of titanium and waited for Ko to arrive. He had been building more and more of the special nanites almost non-stop for the last two weeks. She had been doing the same thing.


    It was finally time to see what the other menu options did. It was something they had agreed to do together.


    He helped the marble go down easier with a soda and looked at the message he had prepared for Stick-Point. Assuming everything went fine with their experiment, then he would be starting to take up missions again. The message said as much, and it wasn¡¯t the only one. He had a few others that were less personalized and ready for the other job brokers he knew.


    He was busy dissecting a random piece of scrap tech when Ko walked into the apartment. He had given her guest access to the place a few days earlier. She was still a tad chilly toward him at times, but for the most part, their burgeoning friendship had recovered to the baseline it had been at before.


    She sat down across from him, her ankles crossed, and legs twisted gently to the side. ¡°Have you decided which option you are going to select?¡±


    He put the piece of tech to the side on a nearby table and nodded. ¡°I have. You?¡±


    ¡°Same.¡± She inhaled, a slight shudder of excitement and fear running through her body. ¡°Who goes first?¡±


    ¡°I will. You¡¯re the mender in training, after all. If something goes wrong, you have a better chance of saving me than I would you.¡±


    She swallowed at that grim reminder, but nodded once.


    Trace pulled up the G.H.O.S.T. System menu, and selected the ¡®Technology¡¯ option first, followed by ¡®Technical Ability+¡¯. It was one of the options that had most intrigued him since he first saw it.


    He took a deep breath and mentally selected the option. The menu disappeared and was replaced with a warning message.


    - User Trace Delevey has selected the Technology-oriented ¡®Technical Ability+¡¯ knowledge upgrade package. Is this correct?


    - Yes/No


    That wasn¡¯t quite what he had been expecting. Regardless, he confirmed the order.


    - User should be in a sitting or reclined position during the following knowledge installation.


    A moment later, a progress bar appeared in the center of his vision that slowly began ticking upward. It took a few moments, but gradually Trace became aware of an uncomfortable sensation inside his head. It felt as though there was a constant static discharge being released around his brain. At first, it was simply uncomfortable and then grew to the point where he could taste the pulses of electricity across his tongue. It was a good thing he was already sitting down, as the pulses had begun to mess with equilibrium by that point.


    It was an intensely uncomfortable and somewhat familiar experience, at the same time, a deluge of new information was being dumped into his brain.


    There was, unfortunately, one caveat. It was all outdated information, by roughly one hundred and thirty years, if he had to guess. Whatever database the nanites were pulling their information from hadn¡¯t been updated since Deckard¡¯s supposed death. It was also only the basic information. It was meant to lay the groundwork for the next information package, and then the one after that, for however many packages had been created.


    Considering how hard just this one installation was on his mind. He could completely understand breaking them up into a series of packages.


    As the installation completed, he also became aware that he couldn¡¯t simply spam the installation button. There was a reason the Learning option still existed. The installation of these knowledge packages was hard on the brain, and it needed time to recover after each use. Moreover, the information in the packages was meant to enhance one¡¯s learning experience, not substitute it entirely.


    It contained the general information one needed to become proficient. If they wanted to become an expert, they still needed to dive into the esoteric information on their own. At least, that was the impression he was getting.


    It had saved him a lot of time exploring a dozen different subjects. At the moment, it was still mostly surface-level knowledge. Yet it was so much more information than he had possessed just a few minutes prior. Each subsequent package would increase what he knew across all those subjects, and likely more.


    A learning module covered one specific subject. This covered everything someone needed for their career. The use cases were completely different.


    His eyes drifted back to the system menu. Many of the options looked like they were knowledge upgrade packages, not all of them though. He suddenly wanted to try out one of the options, but that would need to wait until later. His brain hurt, and he had the most urgent need to pee at the moment.


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    Jumping to his feet, Trace ran to the bathroom and opened his pants as quickly as he could. The need was overwhelming.


    What came out was almost entirely a silver stream of used special-nanites.


    It was no wonder those options needed so many of those special nanites if this was how they ended up afterward. They were more or less disposable nanites to the system. Of course, that also meant every time he used one of those options, he would be quite literally pissing away credits.


    Trace cleaned himself up and went out to the living room, where Ko was waiting with an amused expression. ¡°Don¡¯t even start.¡± He warned. ¡°It will be your turn soon enough.¡±


    Sure enough, that took the mirth from her grin.


    ¡°I take it there are some unforeseen side effects?¡±


    ¡°Hard to know whether they were foreseen by the creators or not. We certainly didn¡¯t though.¡± He replied tiredly. ¡°The one I selected was a huge information package that included well over a dozen subjects. It was a lot to take in, and it kind of hurt. It won¡¯t let me do another one of those for a while because my brain needs time to heal after each use.¡±


    He was fine with that, as it would give him plenty of time to play around with and experiment with a few projects. The information had been geared more towards an engineering aspect than what he normally did. However, that was perfect as he did eventually want to create his own tech, not just fix, and modify what other people had made. Though, modifying everything would suffice for the time being while he continued to learn everything that he needed.


    ¡°Your words fill me with nothing but confidence,¡± Ko muttered, the silver of her fake throat bobbing as she swallowed.


    Trace had learned that the reason her voice had that odd robotic quality to it was because of the damage her mother had caused. Which was obvious. It was the specific type of damage that was the problem in this case. Part of her vocal cords had been paralyzed, so when they attached the cyberware ones to her, it had been impossible to fully synchronize them. She had the option to fully remove her natural vocal cords and go fully cyberware, but it was something she saw no real point in doing, yet.


    He snorted and shook his head. ¡°It was worth the discomfort. You can trust me on that. Now, are you going to do it or not?¡±


    She breathed out and relaxed as she began going through her own unseen menu.


    In the corner of Trace¡¯s vision, a notification appeared.


    - Sub-user Devko Park has selected the Body-oriented ¡®Health Studies+¡¯ knowledge upgrade package.


    That was all he got. There was no confirmation message on his end. As it was entirely her choice, it was a simple heads-up that something was going on that pertained to the G.H.O.S.T. System and nothing more.


    Ko¡¯s hand began to tap against her leg as her face tightened in pain.


    Trace winced in sympathy and looked away. He had just gone through that experience himself only minutes before and found the memory just a little too fresh to even watch someone else go through it.


    While he waited for her to finish, he instead dug into the requirements of the different selections. Maybe it was because he had gone through the process once, but he suddenly found that the nanites were once again willing to answer questions pertaining to the menu.


    Putting it simply, there were two different categories of upgrade selections in the menu. The first and most abundant were knowledge packs. The other was the ¡®effect¡¯ category, which was rather broad.


    He couldn¡¯t label it as simply physical changes because that wasn¡¯t entirely correct. This was the option where the mental aspect of the system came into play. It helped people deal with trauma, self-worth, body image, and more. It was the best therapist you could ever want, and that was only the tip of the iceberg.


    It had the actual ability to enhance the power of your brain and your mind. Assuming you fit certain criteria.


    What he was looking for were the requirements to use those options. It couldn¡¯t be as simple as just having lots of food and creating ever more quantities of those special nanites. That seemed too easy to him.


    And he was right. Each of the options had their own slightly different requirements. Some pertained to materials such as gold or specific vitamins, most though, were of a stranger nature. They required him to perform specific tasks before the upgrade was allowed to occur. He would almost call them milestone achievement upgrades, instead of normal upgrades.


    The ¡®Overload¡¯ option seemed like a way to get around those until he saw the cost. When it mentioned special materials, it meant SPECIAL MATERIALS! That was a strictly emergency use-only option. He had been ignoring it since he first read the notification for it as well. But what exactly was an atomite? He knew what a nanite was, but had never heard of an atomite before.


    If there was one saving grace for him, it was that he possessed the full system. Something that was not meant to happen. Ko, for instance, only had a few of the milestone achievement upgrades available to her in her version of the menu. He had a lot more than that open to him. She also didn¡¯t have the clearly labeled experimental ¡®Overload¡¯ option.


    Before he could fully go through all the different options in the menu, Ko finished and jumped to her feet. She ran to the bathroom without saying a word.


    ¡°So, how was it?¡± He asked when she came back out.


    Ko glared at him. ¡°Ha-ha, very funny.¡±


    ¡°What? I was talking about the knowledge upgrade. Do you feel like you know more than before?¡±


    Her eyes stayed narrowed as she glared at him, before finally answering. ¡°Yeah, I know so much more basic information than I did before. All the groundwork stuff I have been learning from Sevorah really got propped up with this.¡±


    ¡°Not something you want to do too often though, is it?¡±


    She shook her head. ¡°I could force myself to do it, I think. It was awfully close to the reports I¡¯ve of people who have had seizures though. I can completely understand why the brain needs time to heal or settle after each use. It is an unsettling experience.¡±


    Trace felt similar to her. However, he also knew that feeling would fade with time. They always did. Distance was a wonderful thing, especially for him. It had been what kept him sane growing up. There were hazy gaps in his memory that existed each time he had been hurt by someone else. His mind was actively protecting him from the pain and had taken away the memories. He would later remember that he had a grudge against someone, but not necessarily why.


    Even now, his memory of the scav job had started to grow fuzzy around the edges. Portions of it no longer made sense in his mind.


    It was a double-edged sword, but one that occasionally came in handy, such as with situations like this. He knew he would be more willing to go through the process again than Ko when the time came.

 Chapter 25

    The job Trace had just gotten from Stick-Point was different from the last two he had gotten. This one wasn¡¯t geared toward making him prove himself. Instead, it was a proper wraith job. One that would test his abilities, but was also something that he should still be able to accomplish.


    It felt good to finally be a player on the board and not some scrub in the background. Sure, he was the most minor pawn on the board, but he was there. It was a huge step, in his opinion.


    This job had him going up against two gangs, in any manner he saw fit, as long as it resulted in a loss of life on both sides. He could stimulate a gang war if he wanted to or assassinate them all himself. A more trained edger or wraith might even be able to take control of their NetConnects and induce hallucinations or other effects. Depending on how auged out they were, it might have been possible to even take control of portions of their body, theoretically anyway.


    That was far beyond Trace¡¯s ability and likely would be for a long time to come, possibly always.


    All that seemed to matter for the first part of the job was a thinning of the herd on both sides of the field. The second part of the job had him going into the bases of both gangs and stealing information on their supply routes, informants, dealers, anything and everything that made them viable.


    That was it. For all intents and purposes, he was opening the path for a new gang to completely take over both territories. Which might be what he was actually doing, or he could be working for the Denver PD.


    Trace had to chuckle at that thought. The pigs rode around in their armored vehicles but never did anything. The true law enforcement these days came from the security groups belonging to each corporation. Each corporation patrolled around their holdings, and that was it. If a crime was committed outside those areas, well, that was where personal protection came into play.


    He glanced at all the guns hanging on the office wall and rhythmically tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair while he reclined at the desk. It had been weeks since he found the apartment, and there had been no word from the owner. It was beginning to truly look like the man had actually died after escaping capture.


    At this point, he was mostly fine with the thought of using the other man¡¯s guns.


    That said, he needed to decide how he wanted to actually approach this job. The pay was good. Really good. Commensurate with the danger, he would be put in at certain points of the gig. Both gangs were relatively low-level enforcer types with less than two-hundred members. That was probably why Stick-Point had given it to him. It was a good gig that would push him, but not one that was utterly impossible.


    At the same time, there was going to be plenty of opportunity for him to pick up extra items. He wouldn¡¯t scavenge the people this time. That had left a bad taste in his mouth, but everything else was on the table. Data-prisms, guns, knives, vehicles, computers, ink-sheets, any and all tech he could find.


    He would need a place to store it all, along with some way to move it around. The crates had been nice, but they were large and rather unwieldy.


    Trace was hoping that he would be able to pick up a van from one of the gang members, or some other kind of vehicle he could use. Of course, even if he did manage all of that, he still had no idea where to store everything. He had never gone looking for a warehouse or something along those lines before.


    So, he turned to Ko, who, in turn, turned to Sevorah.


    The mender knew a few people and promised to ask around while he got started on the job.


    A job that he still hadn¡¯t decided on how he wanted to go about doing. Did he want to drop a few bodies from each gang on the other side¡¯s doorstep? Nah, that felt a little too forced.


    He sat there for over an hour before deciding that the first thing he was going to do was simply sneak into one of their bases. There was nothing saying that he couldn¡¯t try to get the information first, right?


    Trace nodded once and began gathering the equipment he thought he would need. He had replaced his old courier bag with one that had more pockets and was larger. It also had the benefit of a few extra straps he could use to hold extra weapons on the outside.


    Honestly, it probably made more sense to simply go with a large backpack like most edgers did. He was used to the courier bag though, and found it comfortable. Maybe in the future, he would switch, but not just yet.


    The compressed duffel bag was in one of the pockets, just waiting to be used. He wasn¡¯t making that mistake again.


    The scout rifle and its suppressor were strapped onto the bag, while the revolver went inside in case he needed the extra firepower. The semi-auto Colter Deen 10 or CD-10 was in the holster on his thigh, with its own dedicated suppressor now that worked much better since it fit properly.


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    He added a length of rope and the ever-useful system breaching module, along with plenty of ammo for each of the guns. He wasn¡¯t planning on getting into a firefight, but you never knew. The last item he grabbed was a kukri from the previous owner¡¯s stash of blades. He had done the training on knives, enough times that he felt somewhat confident in his knowledge of handling it. At least, that was the case in a training environment.


    With everything packed, he grabbed his bag and locked the apartment behind him. Strictly speaking, if he was carrying this much hardware then he was supposed to broadcast his edger ID for everyone to see. That way, they understood that he wasn¡¯t simply some random person packing extra weapons. In practice though, it hardly mattered. Everyone carried weapons these days, so no one paid attention to a little extra firepower.


    It was only when you were really strapped for war that you needed to worry about those details. Besides, you didn¡¯t typically want to broadcast that you were on a job to everyone. That had a bad habit of coming back to bite people in the butt.


    The two gangs for this particular job were on the far south side of Denver. They had each taken over a few buildings in one of the old deserted attached cities that existed over there. Most everyone who had once lived in those sorts of places had moved into proper cities after the last World War. That was when the government had collapsed, and the corporations took over running everything.


    The buildings still stood, for the most part. It had been long enough now that many of them were falling down and being retaken by the environment.


    Of course, a few stubborn people still lived out there, refusing to give into the whims of the corporations. Trace applauded their efforts, even if the parents or grandparents who had taught them what freedom truly meant had long since died. It took a different sort of hardy folk to live out there, away from the comfort of modern society.


    They were known as wastelanders by most, and were typically honest folk, as long as you treated them right. They lived hard lives and wouldn¡¯t hesitate to put you down. At least, that was what he had heard.


    Trace had never been out of Denver proper before. This would be his first time interacting with them.


    The bus ride to the outskirts of the city took longer than he had been expecting, with its constant stops. The sun was starting to set by the time he reached the end of the bus-line. From there on, he would either need to walk or take a cab, something that he should have done to begin with. If he had, he would have been there hours ago. But now, he had wanted to save on credits¡­


    Well, now he saw how that was working out for him.


    Trace hailed a taxi and gave the computer the address, only for it to be denied. That was outside of its operating zone. He could take the taxi a few miles outside of the city and get closer, but no matter what, he would be walking into the night to get to his destination.


    Mentally cursing at Stick-Point, and himself, for not doing his homework better, he settled in for the short ride. This was going to suck.


    ***


    His boots clomped along the cracked and worn pavement as night fully settled in. The moon was full, giving off plenty of silvery light, as behind him the Denver skyline washed out any hope he had of seeing stars. This close to the city, the lights were still bright enough to give him a shadow.


    He had miles ahead of him to walk yet. The taxi hadn¡¯t even taken him as close as it was supposed to.


    Behind him, he heard the quiet whir of an electric engine and cursed. If the engine was close enough for him to hear, then whoever was driving it had already spotted him. Since he was on the main road, he held out a small hope it was someone decent. In the pit of his chest though, he knew the truth he was about to be set upon by a ganger or raider.


    Neither of which was a particularly welcoming thought.


    Plenty of horror stories abounded about what they did to people they came across in the night. None of them were the sort of thing that he was interested in experiencing first-hand or having the opportunity to potentially live through.


    Unfortunately, with how close the truck now was, he didn¡¯t have a chance to even try and vanish. All he could do was discreetly loosen the clasps on his CD-10 and the knife while he waited.


    No matter what, he was not going to go quietly into the night.


    Four different goons, each packing large cyberware arms, and fully automatic assault rifles, hopped out of the back of the truck as it drew close.


    Against those sorts of odds, Trace didn¡¯t even bother attempting to draw his weapons. He was training to be a wraith. A mostly unseen threat. He wasn¡¯t a reaper, a mobile fortress(MF), or any of the other defense or killing specialized edger subsets.


    He wasn¡¯t really anything, not yet at least.


    ¡°What¡¯s a peach-like you doing out here at this time o¡¯night?¡± The driver drawled, putting his cyberarm on the roof of the tall truck as he sat on the edge of the open window.


    It took Trace a moment to remember that peach was slang for anyone who was still mostly visible fleshware.


    ¡°I¡¯m heading out to one of the old scarpo towns.¡± Scarpo was a portmanteau of the words, screw-corpo¡¯s. It was the identity the wastelanders towns that were still somehow surviving had adopted. ¡°I have an uncle who said he would help me with a problem.¡±


    One of the goons grabbed his privates. ¡°I¡¯ll be your uncle for a night.¡± The muscle head closest to him smacked the back of his head.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you just come back from a visit to the pleasure dolls?¡±


    ¡°What can I say? Synthetic flesh just doesn¡¯t feel quite the same.¡± His companions all took a step away from him in disgust.


    Only those who were too far gone in certain unhealthy pursuits ever said something like that. Synthetic skin literally felt almost exactly the same. True perverts and connoisseurs of the flesh were the only ones who could tell the difference. Neither were looked kindly upon by most normal gangs.


    ¡°Uh, no thanks, I think I¡¯ll skip taking you up on that offer,¡± Trace shook his head while feeling his insides clench.


    ¡°Yeah, you don¡¯t have to worry about Belcher. The others will keep him in line. Why don¡¯t you get in the truck though? We¡¯ll give you a ride.¡±


    ¡°You never asked which scarpo town I was headed to.¡± He said, while reluctantly walking toward the truck.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t much matter. Now, does it? You¡¯re coming with us either way. It really just depends on how much of you we leave uninjured.¡±

 Chapter 26

    ¡°Would you check this fracking beast out?¡± One of the goons in the back of the truck exclaimed as they went through his bag.


    ¡°Careful with that, you gonk. That¡¯s a Colter 700 Special 4! If it goes off, it has enough power to take us all out.¡± Another of them said almost reverently.


    Trace nodded at his words, having seen firsthand how destructive the revolver was.


    ¡°What¡¯s someone who¡¯s going to their uncle¡¯s place doing with that kind of hardware?¡± The driver asked dangerously.


    ¡°I said I was going to my uncle''s place because I had a problem. I never said what the problem was,¡± Trace replied back with a snarl. His eyes darted down to the gun the driver was holding in his lap. HIS gun. The man held it in a loose grip while keeping the barrel aimed mostly at him.


    ¡°No, no, I don¡¯t suppose you did.¡± The driver mumbled to himself.


    Trace reached across and yanked at the steering wheel. The driver¡¯s cybernetic hands clamped shut on it with enough force to indent it around his fingers just a few seconds too late. The front wheels had already turned to meet the old concrete ridge that lined the road.


    With a jolt of compressing shocks, the truck went airborne while slowly twisting. It landed badly, the front struts that held the wheels in place twisting and breaking from the force and awkward placement. The four goons in the back were all launched into the air, their arms flailing wildly as the extra weight from their augments brought them down with a thunderous crash.


    Trace¡¯s shoulder ached from where it had hit the door. The seatbelt had been next to useless, something that he should have known with how loose it had been.


    The driver had been able to keep his body in place by locking his arms in position. However, that hadn¡¯t worked out so well for his head and neck, which was quite obviously broken just below the man¡¯s NetConnect.


    Without waiting, he reached across and retrieved his CD-10 from the oaf. He gave it a quick once over, tightened the suppressor a half-turn, and then put a single bullet in the man¡¯s head. Better safe than sorry.


    His fingers rifled through the man¡¯s pockets and various net ports as the gain on his eyes made the night brighter. They were far enough away from the city by that point that the light from it was little more than a memory. The moon was still nice and bright, but it couldn¡¯t compare to the truck¡¯s headlights.


    At least it couldn¡¯t before his eyes went to work and made everything seem brighter than it actually was.


    The passenger door opened with a creak as he stumbled out, his pockets a few items heavier. He would have preferred to come away from the encounter with a working truck. He would settle for his life.


    Ducking down beside the wheel, where it was darkest, Trace waited for one of the goons to make an appearance.


    The four had taken hard, painful tumbles that he doubted would be enough to keep them down for long. Not unless they were as unlucky as the driver had been with his weak neck.


    They couldn¡¯t be too far out; the truck had only been going around sixty miles an hour. A decent speed, sure, but each of those gonks had been carrying extra weight with their augments and gear.


    Trace waited another minute before slowly edging out from the protection of the truck at a crouch. He didn¡¯t particularly care about them, but he wanted his bag, scout rifle, and revolver back. Especially that revolver. It was next to impossible to replace.


    A quick glance inside the bed of the truck told him what he already knew. It was empty. Nothing had been dropped inside.


    He ran an S&R scan on the surrounding area but only picked up two people. One was the dead driver; the other was lying in a shallow ditch of some sort, back near the road. There was no one else detected inside his scan radius. Which meant the other three had already left.


    Barely holding back his growl of annoyance, Trace hurried over to the body. It was with some satisfaction that he saw it was the one they had called Belcher. The perverted one. Apparently, he was as unlucky as the driver. He had originally landed on an old metal fence post that had skewered him right through the chest. His additional weight had ripped the rust-weakened metal from the ground, and he had rolled back into what he now saw was a small culvert used for water.


    The revolver was still clutched in his hands. The courier bag, however, was nowhere to be seen. He could only hope one of the other men had it. For the moment, he took back his revolver, along with the multiple pouches the man had been wearing strapped to his thigh. They would be better than nothing.


    He took one last look around, managing to find one of their guns in the scrub-brush. The barrel was jammed full of dirt and other debris. Otherwise; it appeared to be remarkably undamaged.


    Without his bag, he couldn¡¯t properly clean it out either. There were a few picks and random items in the pouches that got the job somewhat done. He would be able to fire it at least, but the tip of the barrel might experience some damage as a result. Or it could be completely fine. Some guns were like that. They were built tough, meant to be used and abused.


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    Even with the gain turned up on his eyes, there was too little light for him to read the manufacturer''s label on the gun. So, there was no way for him to know for sure. With the other three goons out there, he certainly wasn¡¯t going to risk using any form of light.


    He wanted to be the hunter, not the prey.


    Once he was back on the road, he began to lightly jog along, massaging his injured shoulder the entire time.


    This was not how he had envisioned the job starting in the slightest. He had hoped to reach the scarpo town before anything started to happen.


    Na?ve of him, he knew.


    The area outside of the city belonged to three groups. The wastelanders mainly stuck to their towns and the places they had carved out as their territory. They were mostly just trying to make a living with as little corporate involvement as possible.


    Next was the gypsies. They lived in their vehicles and tents and were almost always on the move. They roamed from one city to the next, crossing borders without a care. Most put up with their presence as long as they didn¡¯t stay too long.


    However, part of living the way they did meant being off the grid, away from the wireless charging arrays for days at a time. That meant their vehicles were always equipped with miniature-reactors in place of batteries. Naturally, that meant they were far more valuable than other vehicles to the third group.


    They were known as raiders, and that was exactly what they did. Raid everything. Scarpo towns, gypsy caravans, corporation teams. Nothing was off-limits to them. All that mattered was how they were feeling that particular day, and if they wanted what they saw. If they were feeling good and wanted what you had. Well, then you were in for a fight, and death was a very likely outcome.


    He hadn¡¯t wanted to have interactions with any of them if he had a choice. Though, obviously, if he were to pick a group, it would be the gypsies. They had a somewhat dubious nature at times, but their reputation was still the best.


    *************************


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    *************************


    That hadn¡¯t happened, and he was left running after a few gang members that operated out of a scarpo town. Honestly, he was amazed they had been allowed to operate this long without being taken out by one of the other groups. That didn¡¯t sound like something the wastelanders or raiders would normally allow.


    Not that he actually knew anything about them from firsthand experience. Everything he knew had been taken from rumors and the net. He hadn¡¯t thought to ask Stick-Point or any of the others what they knew. He still could, he supposed, but it was a little late for anything they could tell him to help.


    Off to the side, he saw the old remains of houses and buildings. Unfinished construction, mixed with old forgotten efforts to bulldoze entire sections of what had once been populous neighborhoods. Now, only the jagged piles of broken concrete remained for most of them.


    A few oak and pine trees peeked through in odd places. More of them could be seen in places that had been somewhat properly cleared. However, even in those places, Trace could see plenty of rusted metal and other debris sticking up through the grass.


    He had been jogging for nearly twenty-minutes when he caught the first glimpse of a moving shadow ahead of him. At last, he had caught up to at least one of the three remaining goons. With any luck, all three of them were still together.


    He kept jogging, gradually catching up to the shadow in front of him. The shadows pulled back little by little, as the light from the moon reflected off the scratched silvery surface of the goon¡¯s arms.


    As Trace drew closer to the large man, the shapes of the other two in front of him came into view as well. It was hard to tell for sure at his current distance, however, it didn¡¯t look like the three had gotten away from the accident without injury.


    There were fresh dents in the arms of the closest one. While the right arm of the man in the middle wasn¡¯t moving at all. The fellow in the front seemed to have gotten it the worse as one of his arms was hanging lower than the other one. It had slipped completely out of its socket when he fell on it.


    The best piece of news, at least in his opinion, was the sight of his courier bag. The scout rifle looked a little beat-up. Nothing that he couldn¡¯t hopefully handle repairing with the equipment he had back at the apartment.


    Unfortunately, that also meant the gun that was supposed to be his primary weapon for this OP had suddenly become unusable. That left him with the CD-10 and the large assault rifle he was lugging around. It had a selector switch on it, but a rifle like this just wasn¡¯t going to be as accurate as his scout rifle.


    He flicked the selector to three-round bursts and hoped he had cleaned the barrel of enough debris. If not, this was going to end badly for him.


    Trace waited until he was sure he could hit the man in the front before squeezing the trigger. The rifle kicked against his shoulder as the night exploded with noise.


    Shifting his aim, he steadied himself and squeezed the trigger a second time. He better prepared for the kick this time.


    The assault rifle was a basic model with no fancy upgrades or enhancements on it. That left him aiming manually through the old-fashioned red-dot sight, that he only now realized had become misaligned when it hit the ground. Not a lot, but enough that his shots had gone from killing zones to debilitating zones. They still worked, but that was a large difference for a relatively small amount of distance.


    The first two men dropped with pained screams, while the third whirled around with his own assault rifle at the ready.


    Trace fell to a crouch, adjusted his aim for the bad sights, and pulled the trigger at the same time as the goon. A cold sweat erupted all over his body as he felt the pressure of nearby bullets passing his head. He could feel the rush of wind in his sweaty hair. If he hadn¡¯t crouched, then he would have definitely been hit.


    His target wasn¡¯t so lucky as all three shots drilled through the man¡¯s sternum and hit his reinforced spine. While he was still alive for the moment, he wouldn¡¯t be going anywhere.


    Trace flicked the selector switch to single shot as he stood and moved closer to them. A quick double-tap into each ensured they wouldn¡¯t be a problem for him going forward.


    The rapid beating of his heart reminded him of just how close this one had been to ending differently. He didn¡¯t like working up this close for a reason, especially when there were multiple targets.


    Trace gathered up his courier bag, and all of their useful items, his mind lost in a haze. Dragging them off to the side and into a ditch, he got back to walking.

 Chapter 27

    Trace had left Deckard¡¯s braincase with Ko when he first accepted this job. The brain had shown no signs of waking just yet but was still going through the nutrient mix at an increased rate. It was fast enough that Trace hadn¡¯t felt comfortable leaving the braincase alone while on a job of unknown length.


    Thankfully, Ko had been willing to keep an eye on him¡­ it. Pronouns could be confusing at times.


    Remembering Deckard, had him staring up at the night sky as he walked along. It was enough to make him wonder which of the many satellites he was seeing carried the metal goddess Meredith. Did any of them? It had been so long since she had launched herself into space that no one knew for sure where she actually was.


    All anyone did know; was that she was still there, controlling everything from above.


    Walking faster, he lowered his eyes and pulled up the map. Only a couple of miles more to go.


    ***


    At the moment, Trace was camped out as close to the buildings as he was willing to get, of the first target gang. They were calling themselves the Pinetree-Wolves. It was a stupid name. Doubly so, since there weren¡¯t even any wolves in this part of Colorado. Coyotes, foxes, wild dogs, and other animals sure, but not wolves. They had never migrated down.


    He had managed to get a couple of hours of rest after dragging himself into town in the wee hours of the night.


    Now he was just watching how they operated while taking care of his equipment. The scout rifle was currently spread across the table next to him in pieces. The receiver, or frame of the rifle was what had been damaged. More specifically, it was the lower part that held the magazine, which is why he had noticed it the night before.


    The magazine itself was more or less a complete write off at that point. He could still feed cartridges into the rifle from the top and fire them one at a time. However, if the damage went beyond what he had seen, then that was a good way to completely ruin the gun and possibly hurt himself. Which is why he had taken it a part.


    The scout rifle still had a scope and a suppressor on it. Both of which made it a valuable gun for this job if he wanted to be silent and shoot from a distance. His eyes were incredibly helpful in telling him when something was within measured specs, and when they weren¡¯t. It required a bit of focus and playing around with a few settings, but he had gotten it to work, eventually. Of course, that assumed he knew what the original specifications were.


    In this case, he didn¡¯t, but he was making an educated guess based on the unbent sections that were around it. With that information, he was confident that he could fix it back at the apartment as long as he took it slow. There were a few other damaged components as well, however, nothing that would keep him from firing it if he was careful.


    Trace put it back together and refocused his attention on the Pinetree-Wolves.


    As he watched them go about their activities, he wondered why someone had put a job on these idiots. They were calling themselves a gang, but from watching them, it almost felt like they were neighborhood bullies. They shook down the few locals, but that was it.


    From his vantage point, he couldn¡¯t see into their buildings well enough for more information. So, he could only assume they were doing something more drastic out here. Making drugs, or at least running it for someone else, possibly working in the arms trade for some easy money.


    Operating out of a scarpo town meant fewer eyes on your operation, at least till you reached the walls of the city.


    No matter what, after making his way out here, he refused to believe that this was about some new gang wanting to butt in on some turf. No, his new bet was that these two gangs were working together on something. Whether it was drugs, weapons, or something else, he didn¡¯t care, but someone obviously did.


    And they wanted both gangs weakened for their own purposes.


    As an Edger, the morality of the jobs he accepted was often in question. All you could do was select jobs that you felt the best about with the information you had on hand.


    You couldn¡¯t worry about what happened after the job, that was outside your purview. All you could do was decide whether the job itself was one that you could live with having completed. Which in this case, the answer was yes. No matter what, weakening a couple of gangs was always a good thing.


    After studying the gang for several hours and seeing a near-constant stream of people going in and out of the building, he saw a delivery truck coming down the road. There was no need for him to even guess where that particular vehicle was headed.


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    Running down the stairs, he reached the second floor in time to run across the entryway and make a short jump onto the rear roof portion of the truck. Laying down flat, he kept his eyes open for any watchers from above. He hadn¡¯t spotted any earlier, but that didn¡¯t mean they didn¡¯t exist.


    Inside the loading area of the building, he was finally able to see what it was this gang dealt in. It was all unimpressive weaponry, from the looks of it. Basic crap without any sort of mods. It was the sort of cobbled-together crap that was similar to his old gun.


    These weapons were all extremely cheap to buy, and also really unreliable. How much money were they even making in selling these?


    Pushing the matter from his mind for the moment, Trace jumped up and grabbed hold of a ceiling joist. Silently, he made his way deeper into the building, the dark mottled colors of his clothes helping him stay hidden. If anyone looked up, they might see the slight gleam of light reflected off the barrel of his scout rifle or the assault rifle, but that was it.


    He reached the end of the path in the ceiling and held for a moment to conduct an S&R scan. There was no telling how many members were outside his range, from what he was detecting the current building he was in, did not have the bulk of the gang in it. A fact that he was very grateful for.


    While he felt no particular compunction against killing them, he didn¡¯t particularly want to be swarmed, either. Quiet and invisible was the name of the game.


    Trace waited until no one was nearby to jump from the ceiling joist to the nearby stairs leading up.


    With the suppressed CD-10 in hand, he crept up the stairs. Thanks to his scans, he knew where the nearby people and cameras were. Despite having that information, he soon came across a wrinkle he hadn¡¯t been expecting, traps.


    At first glance, they were inelegant laser-tripped mines and bombs. Which, to be fair, is more or less exactly what they were. The elegance came from the sophisticated handshake protocol all of them possessed. If anyone from the gang came within a certain range of them, the traps would automatically deactivate so they could pass.


    It allowed the gang to trap nearly every hallway Trace would have taken. A few of them were placed in areas that he would have been able to skirt around using other methods. Most, however, were placed along the sole path.


    At least that is what he thought at first. It turned out that the gang had forgotten about the ducting. Slipping into the first room he came across; he spotted the grating that ran along the floor. A moment later, he was crawling along a dusty ductwork system, completely ignoring the traps.


    He followed it all the way to what he thought was the office. Peeking through the grate slats, he saw three people sitting around a desk, talking. The man closest to him, the one who seemed in charge, was holding an ink-sheet that he was taking notes on. The other two appeared to be his lieutenants in the gang or other form of sub-leaders. They were also sporting a fair bit of cyberware and very little synth skin anywhere to be seen.


    They weren¡¯t fully auged-out, or anything. They weren¡¯t anywhere close to that level of cyberware integration. From what he could see, they had both swapped out their legs and arms in full. That meant they had also at least partially replaced their skeletons and internal organs with reinforced parts to support the changes.


    Trace frowned, as he listened to them talk business. Those sorts of upgrades weren¡¯t cheap. They weren¡¯t the sort of hardware gang members that were peddling bottom-of-the-barrel weapons should be able to afford.


    Regardless, he wasn¡¯t going to attack the room with all of them in there. That would be a quick way to die.


    Eventually, the meeting ended, and the two across from the leader got up to leave.


    Trace ran a couple of S&R scans to make sure they had actually left before making his move. The aiming sights on the CD-10 were linked to his eyes, giving him a targeting reticle of where the bullet was expected to go. Carefully, he placed the suppressed barrel near the grate slats, aimed at the back of the man¡¯s chair, and pulled the trigger.


    With quiet bursts of air, he walked his aim up the back of the chair, ending with a shot in the man¡¯s skull. He had initially been worried that the chair might have been bulletproof, but the explosive release of stuffing quickly set his mind at ease.


    Sure, putting five bullets into one man might be a little extreme, normally. After seeing how many augments the other two had been sporting, he wasn¡¯t willing to take any chances.


    Trace wanted this job to go off as easily as it possibly could, and if that meant putting a few extra holes in the leader, then so be it.


    The grate had been partially shredded and came off easily enough.


    Without delay, he began gathering up everything that was on top of the desk. It was only when he took a moment to turn and look at the leader that he felt his blood run cold.


    He was definitely dead, but it was also more appropriate to call the body an android instead of anything that had once been human.


    Barely holding back the urge to curse, he began taking photos of everything. He wanted to know what Stick-Point had gotten him involved in. This was supposed to be a relatively easy job, not one with gangs that could afford androids!


    It felt like he was having some weird luck with jobs lately.


    ¡®What the hosing-shizz is this?¡¯ He sent off to Stick-Point along with a few pictures.


    With that out of the way, he went back to collecting everything he could find. The appearance of the android certainly threw his plans into a shredder. How was he supposed to collect information from a computer that the android hadn¡¯t been using? All of that information existed on the other end, where the person who had undoubtedly been controlling the android was.


    A person who was probably already in the process of telling everyone his precious android had sprung a few leaks.


    How was he going to escape this situation? He couldn¡¯t use the vents; they would be expecting that.


    Trace glanced at the window. They were a few floors up, much too high for him to jump. There was a small lip that he could hang onto that ran around the entire building. It would be tough with all the extra weight he was carrying, but he might be able to make it to another window.


    Whether he could do it without being seen was another matter.


    Either way, he was out of time and choices.


    Trace dove toward the window and the ledge, hoping for all that he was worth his fingers would hold.

 Chapter 28

    It had been close, with how fast he had needed to move to remain out of sight. Even then, he had barely made it around the corner in time. The tips of his fingers were screaming at him because of the abuse he had put them through. His hands were trembling, and his fingers refused to straighten for several seconds after he climbed through the first window he came to.


    That had been a little too close for comfort, in his opinion.


    It wasn¡¯t like he had escaped, either. No, all he had done was go a single room over. He wasn¡¯t exactly in that much of a better place than a minute earlier.


    A quick S&R scan showed no one had started moving in the direction of the room he was in just yet. With that information in hand, Trace did two things. He removed the rope from his bag and took a quick second to toss a few of the random data prisms and other items that were laying around inside it. Then, tying off one end of the rope to the nearest sturdy object, he tossed it out the window and climbed down it to safety.


    It was a tad annoying to lose the rope this early in the job, but he valued his life more than the length of climbing rope. It had served its purpose, and he could take solace in that fact.


    As soon as he hit the ground, he began running, ducking around the first corner he came to in order to keep himself out of sight. His entire plan of attack against both gangs needed to be reworked if these were the type of people he was up against. He also needed to determine if he even wanted to remain on this job.


    Then, after doing both of those things, he needed to call Stick-Point and chew him out!


    No, actually, he would do that first.


    ¡°Stick-Point!¡± He growled when the older man answered the call. ¡°What is going on? How am I supposed to collect information from an android? Even if it wasn¡¯t being puppeted around, it doesn¡¯t exactly have a need for a computer or any other external systems to keep track of everything.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m looking into the matter right now, Tune,¡± He replied, using Trace¡¯s official edger name. It let him know that this call was on the record and that he needed to be careful with what he said going forward. ¡°What else can you tell me about the job so far?¡±


    Trace told him about the expensive cyberware which both the people and the android had been sporting and the supply of crappy guns they had been loading into the vehicle.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what is going on with this gang, but none of it is adding up.¡±


    The other end of the line was silent for several moments as Stick-Point looked things up. ¡°Have you heard of the corporation RyZyx?¡±


    Trace looked around the room he was holed up in, wondering if he had heard right. ¡°RyZyx? Of course, I¡¯ve heard of them. They have their hands in everything. Weapons, cyberware, sensors, and more. They are one of the corporations closest to being considered a megacorporation after Koarden Enterprises.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s correct, except for the last part. The steel goddess will never let another megacorporation besides hers exist. Anyway, the two people you saw talking with the android work for RyZyx. They are part of the corporation¡¯s external security team.¡±


    ¡°What does that mean, exactly?¡±


    ¡°It means this gang is being funded by RyZyx for some reason. I can only assume that the other gang is being funded by them as well, or by a rival corporation. They must have never expected anyone to actually go out there and attack them.¡±


    Upon hearing that the two were corpo security goons, Trace ran his Search & Rescue scan. You didn¡¯t escape those sorts of people, not with the kind of skills and cyberware he possessed at least.


    Sure enough, as soon as the scan back, it revealed that he was surrounded.


    A curse slipped out, as he forgot he was on a call.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong, Tune?¡± Stick-Point demanded.


    ¡°I¡¯m surrounded. They found me. I¡¯m going to have to get back to you later.¡± Trace hung up and began desperately looking for a way out of his current predicament.


    He couldn¡¯t see one. The building he had chosen didn¡¯t have a basement or any sort of escape hatch. It was a simple abandoned mechanic¡¯s garage, nothing more. The closest thing there was to a safe place for him to hide was the pit in the floor people once used to stand beneath cars as they worked on them.


    It wasn¡¯t exactly a great hiding spot.


    Nevertheless, he also wasn¡¯t just going to stand around and let himself be captured. That wasn¡¯t who he was. Trace had just started to make headway in his life and there was no way he was going down without a fight.


    He initiated another S&R scan and saw that they were all in the same positions as before. The range of his scans wasn¡¯t the best, so it was doubtful that he was seeing everyone. Still, he found it odd that those he could see hadn¡¯t moved at all.


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    There was no one trying to come in from above, though there were a few people on the roof that he hadn¡¯t heard arrive. As far as he could tell, all they were doing was surrounding the building and ensuring that he didn¡¯t leave. Which made him want to leave all the more.


    They obviously knew he was there, yet they weren¡¯t doing anything but keeping him in place.


    It was the sort of situation he feared the most. One with nothing but unknowns, no matter where he turned.


    Trace kept looking around the garage, trying to find anything that might help. There was no leftover oil or other handy combustibles. Those had all been phased out in the 1950s when electric motors took over. That was when Tesla¡¯s wireless grid had first covered every portion of the United States.


    There were a few pieces of tech from ancient motors, but nothing he could use. Even the coils had been stripped from everything.


    He stopped and took another, more careful look around the place. Where was all the wiring?


    Please, let it still be here. He begged internally.


    In the corner, with a fine coating of dust and a few moldy blankets, he found nearly forty pounds of bare copper wire. It was perfect, as long as he worked quickly, and they continued to not make a move.


    Tracy found a long metal pole and began winding the copper around it. He left a long lead on each end of the pole and brought it to the super capacitor that was connected to the power grid. The power had been off for a while, so hopefully, the capacitor was fully discharged. Otherwise, this next part was going to suck.


    Taking the copper wire, he wrapped it around the exposed legs of the super capacitor. With that completed, he flipped the switch for the grid power and ran for the hole in the floor while covering his head.


    Strictly speaking, what he was attempting to do needed a momentary switch on it. One that would tell the capacitor to dump all of its energy into the coil. However, he was banking on it simply pulling more and more until it melted down.


    With any luck, that would create a nice little explosion above his head. It was all a side effect of what the copper coil was already doing to a certain degree, which was creating an EMP field. One that was growing in strength.


    It wasn¡¯t pretty, and it certainly wasn¡¯t as effective as it could have been, but with any luck, it would do the job. Assuming the walls of the building didn¡¯t contain everything.


    When it all melted down, the super capacitor would send out an especially strong blast of EMP at the end. That would be his chance to act.


    His mil-spec eyes had some EMP shielding installed. The NetConnect, on the other hand did not. He didn¡¯t want to risk it getting damaged, so he powered it down and kept his head covered while he waited.


    He waited a minute and then risked running an S&R scan without the NetConnect as an intermediary. His mind handled the process alright, but he could immediately tell that he wouldn¡¯t be able to run another one for a few minutes. With the NetConnect, he could spam the scan dozens of times before he felt it heating up. This one time was enough to make him feel as though he had developed a sudden fever.


    Sevorah might have believed he could use it with just his brain, and he had proven that was possible. It didn¡¯t seem to be a viable long-term solution, at least not without something that kept his brain cool. Just being able to use it with a regular NetConnect was plenty for him.


    What he saw going on above and around him filled him with hope. All of the previously stationary people had either fallen to their knees or were beginning to tumble about in pain.


    It was working.


    The scent of ozone filled the air of the garage as the super capacitor reached its limits. That was his cue to lay down flat and put the bag over his head.


    In the corner of the room, where the power panel was, a high-pitched whine developed. It grew in volume alongside the smell of ozone. Abruptly, the super capacitor gave out, blowing its cap completely off, even as the insides melted down. Beside it, the liquified remains of the copper coil bubbled away on the floor as they slowly cooled.


    At some point, there had been so much electricity going through it that it had melted the copper right off the metal pole.


    Turning on his NetConnect, he waited for its boot-up sequence to finish before climbing out of the hole in the floor.


    As soon as it was up and running, he ran an S&R scan and found himself grinning.


    Hurrying out of the building with his CD-10 in hand, he went to work. One after another, he double-tapped helpless gang members. Each one had been blinded when their eyes short-circuited and left without a way to call for help when the same happened to their NetConnects. Some had low-end cyberware replacement arms or legs. The augments hadn¡¯t been completely short-circuited, but it was obvious that more than one internal microprocessor had been damaged.


    It was on the very edge of what he considered the EMP¡¯s effective range to be, that he found them. The two RyZyx security officers. They had been coming straight toward him when the super capacitor blew. That was why everyone hadn¡¯t been doing anything. They had been waiting for these two to arrive.


    Both were awake and crawling along the ground when he found them.


    ¡°You can quit the act,¡± He said, staying out of their line of sight. ¡°I know your augments weren¡¯t damaged by the EMP burst. This doesn¡¯t have to go any farther than it already has for any of us. I was hired to do a job, one that was supposed to be simple. Now, obviously, this has not been a simple job. I was not expecting corpo¡¯s out here. However, I have also done enough damage that I think I can argue I have fulfilled the terms of my contract.¡±


    With a snarl, they both pushed themselves off the ground and to their knees, only to pause when Trace put a bullet between them.


    ¡°Let¡¯s remain calm, and I¡¯d rather if you didn¡¯t see my face. I don¡¯t want either of you getting any ideas about coming after me for this mess.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re wrong about our augments not being damaged. It turns out our eyes weren¡¯t shielded. They¡¯re completely fried. Not just damaged, but beyond repair.¡± The larger one snarled angrily, turning his face enough so Trace could see the blackened augments and nasty burn marks around their eyes.


    ¡°Calm down. Now, as you can see, us coming after you isn¡¯t exactly a major concern at the moment. However, if you want us off your back permanently, you¡¯ve got to give us something in return. After all, you did destroy a rather expensive piece of equipment.¡± The smaller of the two said, keeping a hand on his companion.


    ¡°You mean that android?¡± They nodded. Trace snorted. ¡°You corpo¡¯s have a weird sense of priorities. Fine, I¡¯ll tell you all I know about this job, but don¡¯t go acting on it for a couple of days. I want to be able to turn in what I have and get paid first.¡±


    After telling them everything he knew, he slipped around a corner and ran away. Now all he had to do was find a vehicle and make it back home in one piece.

 Chapter 29

    With the two corpo agents mostly out of commission for the moment, he felt a little more comfortable with taking the time to loot people. He wasn¡¯t going to take a lot of time doing it, but a few extra minutes was fine.


    It did end up with him snagging the keys to several personal vehicles. Which is exactly what he needed to get back to Denver at the moment. Finding each of them so he could decide on which one to pick though, took another few minutes.


    Most of them were aged, rusted-through pieces of junk that looked as though they were one good pothole away from crumpling in on themselves.


    There was one, and he had no idea who he had gotten the key from, but the person had clearly been an enthusiast. Everything from the wheels to the engine was custom, not necessarily good custom work. But what could you expect from people who lived in the backend of nowhere?


    The truck was sitting on a three-inch lift kit with large, oversized wheels that gave it another two in height. The body panels were all thick stainless steel, while the windows had been entirely replaced with screens. During his quick inspection, he was able to find three different air filters for the interior of the cabin.


    With a little more work, and if you removed the lift kit, this truck was almost ready to go through the badlands. Well, that was maybe a slight exaggeration. It would need a fair bit more work to survive the badlands of Wyoming. The high-speed winds were always at a constant sixty miles per hour or higher, with regular gusts of up to a hundred and forty. At those speeds, the sandy winds could strip the flesh from a person¡¯s bones if they weren¡¯t careful.


    Forget about paint on a car or anything else. Every minor crack needed to be sealed before you even attempted to cross that place. Then there was also the always present danger of being flipped over.


    Most simply went around whenever possible.


    Regardless, he had no designs on ever going through that place, so this truck fit his needs perfectly. It would be a little out-of-place inside the city, but that was a problem for later.


    He loaded up both his bags and a few extra items he had found, and then left the scarpo town behind.


    As he was speeding down the road, dodging potholes, he put together a message for Stick-Point along with all the photos he had taken. Strictly speaking, the job was only half-finished, at the same time, it was clear that the posting had been less than honest in pretty much everything.


    It was to the point where if he had to pay a fine to be clear of the job or take a hit on his reputation, then he would. That was how ridiculous this job was.


    At least for the moment, he had a truck of his own. Proving that it was his if he was stopped would be an issue, however, it wasn¡¯t as though the original owner was going to fight him for it. That said, it was still a worry. One of the few things the Denver PD did do was pull people over and constantly hand out tickets. They were a form of tax on the people who had vehicles, and repossessing those same vehicles for unpaid tickets was a favorite pastime of theirs.


    If he got stopped and they discovered the truck wasn¡¯t his¡­ He would be lucky if the only thing that happened was it getting impounded.


    There was still an hour or two left before he had to worry about that.


    A mere speck of time that passed by more quickly than he thought it would. It turns out that driving the entire way made the trip go a lot faster than if one tried walking most of the distance. Who would have guessed?


    Trace pulled the truck over and stopped as soon as the city came into sight. He couldn¡¯t put this problem off any longer.


    Slipping the system breaching module into his neck, he connected to the truck and began running through the options. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing he could do with the module. Not that he had truly been expecting anything else. Car companies had long since hardened their systems against such common breaching modules. He would need something more high-end if he wanted to gain access to this system.


    It was a little funny to him that car manufacturers had better security than apartment buildings and a lot of lock companies. For whatever reason, even after those places were breached and had their secrets spread, they rarely released patches for their old systems. That wasn¡¯t the case for car companies who kept updating even their older models.


    He was sure it had something to do with money. It always did. All he knew was that at the moment, it was causing him problems.


    Leaving the system breaching module installed in his neck, and the cable plugged into the truck, he pulled up the G.H.O.S.T. System menu. He had been through it hundreds of times by that point, and yet he still couldn¡¯t stop himself from hoping there was something inside that would help.


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    The NetConnection option had been his best hope, but even after scrolling through multiple pages, he still hadn¡¯t seen anything new. There were plenty of items that had the potential to help at some point in the distant future, but that was it.


    Going back to the main menu, he selected ''Nanite¡¯ and began opening and closing each option. It was on the third option that he found what he was looking for. It was a sub-option, and the name alone was enough to make him stop. ¡®Upgrade Temporary Module¡¯, just as the name implied, it upgraded any temporary module he had installed at the moment. By which it meant modules that were only meant to run programs instead of installing something.


    There was a drawback to the option. Namely, while it made whatever module it was used on far more capable, it also then existed on a deadline. Two minutes to be exact, after which it would crumble to dust as it was ejected from the ports in his NetConnect.


    Losing one of the two system-breaching modules he had inherited with the apartment was a fairly hefty price to pay. Especially if this didn¡¯t work. Truth be told, he could have bought a vehicle for the price of one of those modules if he sold them. Not one as nice as this truck, but it would have been completely legal.


    Before he could change his mind, he selected the option.


    He could feel a decent portion of the special and regular nanites surge through his body in a wave as they all made for the module. The regular nanites were serving as a bridge for the expendable special nanites that would do all of the work inside the module.


    The system breaching module began to heat up, as the displayed options from it began to flicker in and out before eventually disappearing entirely. The entire process took around a minute, and as soon as it had finished, the two-minute countdown began in the corner of his vision.


    It didn¡¯t even matter if he was using the module or not; the timer was already running out on it.


    The menu inside the system breaching module was far more advanced this time around when he opened it. There were options for changing everything from the displayed make and model to the odometer settings.


    He took a quick moment to change the owner and then locked that particular setting. No one else, except perhaps the manufacturer, would be able to change it now. Once that was done, he started to poke around at the other options. There was one for the electric motors that drew his eye. Unfortunately, the timer ran out a second later and the module disintegrated, destroying the menu.


    From the brief look he had gotten, it seemed as though it might have been possible to tweak the power output of the motors. There had been several more options as well, so even more might have been possible that he just hadn¡¯t seen.


    Either way, getting an upgraded system breaching module had just become a higher priority item for him.


    With the matter of the truck¡¯s ownership now taken care of, he was free to continue driving into the city.


    For the moment, he would park it at the apartment building. He really didn¡¯t want to keep it there for more than a few days though.


    With any luck, Sevorah would come through with that warehouse or other site he could use. It had become a little less of an immediate major concern with how little he had managed to loot on this job. However, now that he had the truck, future jobs would hopefully see an uptick in looted items.


    At the city walls, he was stopped, and the ownership of the truck was inspected by a couple of seedy-looking Denver PD pig pushers. The fact that they were inordinately displeased when it came back as registered to him, told him all he needed to know about them. These two had been looking to get a free ride.


    Trace took a few snapshots of their faces and nametags before driving away. He wouldn¡¯t do anything to them now, but if he was ever on a job, and saw them in a dark alley. Well¡­ no one could blame him if his finger slipped a couple of times.


    As he was parking the truck underneath the apartment building, he was already making a list of items that needed to be changed on the truck. At the top of the list was the lift kit. He liked the height, but at the very least, it needed to be something modular that could be changed on command. The roof of the truck had scraped against the height bar as he pulled into the underground parking area. The light bar that had been on the roof of the truck had been torn completely off at one point and was now in the truck bed.


    That had been a thoroughly unpleasant experience, listening to the tearing of metal.


    It made his teeth hurt just thinking about it.


    Dragging his bags and new equipment into the elevator, he hit the button for the eighth floor and felt a part of himself relax. Over the last few weeks, he had grown increasingly comfortable with the thought of this apartment as his own.


    He still wasn¡¯t ready to completely give himself over to the idea, but it was hard to deny the comfort.


    Inside the apartment, he placed the scout rifle on the desk so he could work on it later. The other guns he had collected, he placed on the floor for later inspection.


    Everything else followed him into the front room, where he could start sorting through it. It was time to see what he had actually managed to snag, and if any of it was anything good.


    It was doubtful, but one could hope.


    Stick-Point chose that moment to call, leaving him to separate everything from the bags in a semi-distracted manner while talking to the man.


    ¡°Where are you now, Trace?¡± The job broker asked worriedly. ¡°Did you get away from that bloody scarpo town alright? I¡¯ll send someone to pick you up. Just tell me where you are.¡±


    Trace chuckled at the old man¡¯s slipup. This was supposed to be a work call, and yet he had used his real name.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine, Stick-Point. I just got back to my place a couple of minutes ago, in fact. Snagged myself a set of wheels and drove myself home.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re lucky you didn¡¯t get pulled over.¡±


    ¡°Heh, yeah, I¡¯m going to need a more advanced module at some point. The basic ones just don¡¯t cut it for that sort of work.¡±


    Stick-Point snorted. ¡°An advanced module for anything would make your debt to Sevorah seem small in comparison. Even more so for one of those. You should look at the elementary or complex modules first. You might get lucky.¡±


    There were four levels of modules: basic, elementary, complex, and advanced. With each one growing in price and ability.


    ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re probably right,¡± Trace capitulated for the moment. ¡°I still need a location to get them though. Now, what¡¯s the word on this job?¡±

 Divergence Four

    The world was thrown into chaos in 1934 by Adolf Hitler -who was serving his second term as leader of Germany- when he abruptly declared war on Poland. The German or Nazi army had weapons the rest of the world had never seen before.


    Unfortunately, these weapons of death led to Germany taking over much of Europe while the rest of the world combined their intellectual might. Nikola Tesla and Howard Hughes combined their mental powers with that of relative newcomer Hedy Lamarr to create ever more impressive systems.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    In time, technologies once thought to belong only in the pages of comic books began to appear.


    The dead numbered in the millions, but eventually, the Allies began to push the madman back.

 Chapter 30

    Stick-Point was silent for several seconds. ¡°I¡¯ve been looking into this job more, ever since you raised the warning flag on it. I had to dig deep, but eventually, details began appearing that I didn¡¯t like the look of. Also, the client isn¡¯t particularly happy at the moment. For some reason, they expected things to turn out differently even with their wildly inaccurate job details.¡±


    ¡°Okayyy¡­¡± Trace was more than a little confused. ¡°So, what does that mean for me? Is my rep taking a hit? Do I need to pay a fine? What?¡±


    ¡°Still trying to figure that out, honestly. The client is creating plenty of noise, but the information you provided makes for a very good case on the job being a tier two, possibly even a tier three edger job. I¡¯ve presented everything to the other top job brokers, and we¡¯ll talk about it at our meeting tonight. I¡¯ll let you know in the morning what everyone decides. However, I don¡¯t see this going sideways unless the client really starts flashing some credits.¡±


    Trace growled. ¡°I know I shouldn¡¯t ask this, but who is the client, and why are they so set on having a tier-one edger doing this job?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right, you shouldn¡¯t ask that. It¡¯s rule number one of being an edger. Never ask who the client is! Of course, do you know what the second rule is?¡±


    ¡°Never piss off the job-broker!¡± Trace told him with a snort.


    ¡°Exactly. So, while I¡¯m still not going to tell you who the client is. I will say that they aren¡¯t anything like our normal brand of tier-one clients. That alone should have raised some flags when this request was first investigated and processed. This is the sort of client that would normally have been hiring a specialist.¡±


    Trace shivered as that sank in. Stick-Point wouldn¡¯t, maybe even couldn¡¯t, tell him who the actual client for the job had been. What he had done was, in a way, almost as good. It told him the class of person behind the request, which in this case was related to the ability to hire specialists in a normal fashion. Unless he missed his guess, Stick-Point had also alluded to their being more than one of them.


    The sort of people on that type of list were rather small in his uneducated opinion, CEOs, and the like. People with more credits than they knew what to do with. The type with enough wealth that if they ever actually spent any of it, they would crash the economy.


    Those were the sort of people who could afford to hire specialist edgers on a regular basis. At least in his mind.


    They spoke for a few more minutes, with Stick-Point giving him the location for the module seller before mutually hanging up.


    Trace groaned and rubbed his eyes as he leaned back into the couch and just tried to relax.


    The bags were on the small table in front of him, just waiting for him to go through.


    He cracked his neck and sat up, pulling the courier bag closer to him. Carefully, he removed the revolver and all the ammo for it, placing them to the side before he began removing everything else. First up was the ink-sheet he had recovered from the desk the android had been sitting at. He wished he had taken more time to search that desk, just in case there had been other items. It was too late now though.


    After that, he spread out all the data prisms he had collected from the room he had escaped into. At the time, he wasn¡¯t really looking at what he was grabbing. He had ensured that he was grabbing all the data prisms, but little else beyond that. It came as a surprise to him when a grenade, several suppressors, and a handful of gun components all rolled out of the bag.


    He knew he had just been shoving random crap into the bag at the time, but he didn¡¯t realize it had been quite to that extent.


    Regardless, he pushed all the extra items to a different side of the table so he could go through it all later. Right now, he was more interested in going through the items he had put in the duffle bag. After that, he would go through the ink-sheet, then the data prisms, and finally then take a look at all his new guns.


    He might not have gotten quite as much as he had been hoping for from this job in regard to overall loot. However, all things considered, he hadn¡¯t come away too bad. The truck alone almost made it worth it for him. Perhaps not in creditory value, but in sheer usefulness, it would be hard to beat.


    Always renting a van or taking a cab to and from jobs was an excellent way to create and leave a trail for people to follow.


    Being an edger was dangerous work, and you tended to collect enemies with every job.


    His disastrous job with the scavs was an excellent example of that. Of course, having the truck would simply give them an item to track constantly. That was the risks you took, and simply something he would need to deal with.


    The duffel bag landed on the table with a clunk. Pulling back the zipper, he grinned. Oh, yeah, now this is what he was talking about. Those goons he had taken out with the EMP might not have been the smartest of fellows, but they had certainly been equipped!


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    He had been able to swipe a fair amount of credits from their then-disabled crypto-vaults. Being a gangster might pay well for the average scrub, but taking them out in bulk was where the real money was out.


    Nearly all of them had been sporting modules of some kind, a few of which had been completely fried. There had also been a few with data prisms in their pockets that he had been able to grab.


    The true prize though, was the nearly excessive number of guns he had stuffed in the bag. The bag bulged with their various pistols, two additional scout rifles, and an smg he had grabbed for fun.


    At the rate he was acquiring guns, his own armory would soon outpace the original owner of this apartment. It would take a little longer though, as he was determined to only keep a couple of each model. He wasn¡¯t going to have a near-endless pile of guns shoved in a corner.


    They were tools meant to be used, not simply collected. No matter how awesome that sounded in his head.


    Well¡­ Maybe if the place Sevorah found for him had enough room, he could keep and collect a few of his favorites.


    Speaking of which, that reminded him he needed to send her a message.


    Eight pistols, two scout rifles, one smg, three knives of differing styles and lengths, plus all the various data prisms and modules he had collected.


    He hadn¡¯t had a chance to use the kukri he had borrowed from the armory in the office. He liked the style though, and was more than a little sad that none of the three blades mimicked it. They were run-of-the-mill knives, in his opinion. There was the ever-popular tanto dagger, a quick-open stiletto -he¡¯d keep that one and stick it in his pocket- and the last was a badly weighted throwing knife.


    Without a doubt, he was selling the first and the third one. The blade of the stiletto wasn¡¯t the greatest. That wasn¡¯t a problem with what he had in mind for it. The knife was meant to be a backup ace to get him out of emergencies, not something he used on a regular basis.


    He dropped both knives back into the duffel bag. All the data prisms he had grabbed from them went into one of the large pockets in his new courier bag. While the data prisms he had found in the room went into a separate pocket. It likely didn¡¯t matter, as the information contained in them would be the deciding factor anyway. Regardless, for the moment, he wanted to keep them separate from each other.


    The pistols he spread out across the table, taking his time to review each one.


    Unlike the ones he had taken from the scavs, these weren¡¯t covered in layers of blood and gore. For the most part, they looked as though they had been properly taken care of. There were a few places where they could stand to have a little extra care, but that was fairly normal, in his opinion.


    He had shot a couple of them in the teaching module, and they were decent, in his opinion. No better or worse than the CD-10 he had already started growing accustomed to. He felt alright with putting those in the duffel bag to sell, though if Ko stopped by later, he would probably offer them to her first.


    That left five pistols. These were a little tougher for him.


    Trace hadn¡¯t used them in the teaching module, and while he recognized the names of their manufacturers, that was it. He didn¡¯t know if these specific models were worth the metal they had been created from. Not everything could be a winner. Even reputable companies inevitably had bad products they were forced to sell on the cheap.


    The next hour was occupied with Trace researching each of the guns in turn. Digging up all he could about the models in question, and whether they were worth anything. The answer was no to three of them. The remaining two, however, were actually really good guns.


    One was a Kenyobi with an optical scope and an extended barrel. It wasn¡¯t by much, but it would improve accuracy over longer than normal distances. The scope integrated with his eyes and instead of the normal reticle, provided him with a secondary adjustable zoomed-in view of what he was aiming at.


    Trace wasn¡¯t a huge proponent of fighting with two guns, especially since he had just barely started to get his aim under control. That said, he might have just found a gun worth wearing on his other hip. The fact that it also fired 10-millimeter ammunition like his CD-10 helped as well.


    The less he needed to worry about different types of ammunition, the better.


    The second gun was from a local manufacturer that had started up within the last forty years. He hesitated to call them a corporation just yet, but they were well on their way to becoming a weapons-based one, for sure.


    It was a Maritech X5, with twin offset stacked barrels that were each fed ammo through different methods. The main barrel used the traditional magazine in 10-millimeter ammo. The second barrel, however, was fitted to use clips that came in from the side. There was a switch on the trigger that controlled which barrel you were firing from at any given time. The main draw of the second barrel was the particular ammo they had chosen for the clips.


    It wasn¡¯t powerful rifle ammo, or some sort of huge wrist-breaking buster ammo, like his revolver used. Instead, it actually held shotgun shells, three to a clip, ready to be blasted out from a short pistol barrel.


    Well, he certainly wasn¡¯t getting rid of that pistol either. It just sounded too awesome and useful to let go of. It would go in his armory for the jobs he thought he would need, the extra versatility, or whenever he went up against some scavs. Yeah, that would become his scav hunting gun.


    The smg was nothing special, but being able to fire that quickly would definitely be useful. He would keep it until he found something better.


    Last but not least were the two scout rifles.


    He had been looking forward to these two the most. He liked the scout rifle he had, but he would also be the first to admit that it had its issues. The mods on it were nice, but the scavs he had taken it from originally had not been kind to the poor rifle at all. Even after all the work he had put into it after cleaning it up, there had still been problems with the gun.


    It seemed as though scavs were of the opinion that when a gun started to fail, there were two options, replace it, or modify the shizz out of it.


    On the one hand, he was absolutely fine with getting all the sweet mods. On the other, he would have just preferred they had taken care of it in the first place. Of course, since they didn¡¯t take care of their weapons, it led to a greater-than-normal number of jams, misfires, explosions, and other problems. So, he really wasn¡¯t going to complain.


    Both of the scout rifles looked like they were in overall better condition than his current one. Not that it was hard with the massive dent someone¡¯s fat metal arm had put in the receiver. They had fewer mods, but he should be able to transfer a couple of them over, so that wasn¡¯t a big deal either.


    Trace was just starting to look up the information on the first one when someone banged on the door in a slow, tired manner.

 Chapter 31

    Trace ran a Search & Rescue scan when he reached the front door. The outline it revealed was of a man he didn¡¯t recognize, and definitely not of Ko¡¯s much more svelte female form.


    He held his pistol at the ready as he opened the door a crack and looked out at the man on the door¡¯s camera display.


    The fellow looked absolutely wrecked. Everything about him screamed that he was severely ill.


    ¡°Who the frack are you?¡± The wrecked mess of a man asked as he leaned heavily against the door.


    Trace kept the door in place with his foot. ¡°I could ask you the same thing. This is my apartment. Who are you?¡±


    An expression of utter confusion spread across the worn, tired man¡¯s face. He pulled back to look at the numbers for the apartment and slowly shook his head.


    ¡°No, this is my apartment. I wasn¡¯t gone long enough for them to have sold it out from beneath me.¡±


    ¡°Ahh,¡± Suddenly everything made sense to him. ¡°You¡¯re looking¡­ decent-ish for a dead guy.¡± Trace couldn¡¯t bring himself to say the man looked good. That would just be going too far.


    He opened the door wider and invited the man inside. It was actually the other man¡¯s apartment, after all, he was just borrowing it.


    ¡°Come on inside. Do you need any medical help? I have a friend who is a mender in training, who I can call over if you want.¡±


    The owner limped heavily inside the apartment. Every slow step he took, a ponderous thing that was accompanied by a wince and a pause as he stopped for breath.


    Trace decided to take the initiative to call Ko while he waited for the man to reach the couch. ¡°Hey, Ko, I have a bit of a problem here at the apartment. Can you bring your medical supplies and get here, quick?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s going on? Are you hurt?¡± Despite the odd quality of her robotic voice, the worry she was feeling came clearly through.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine, it¡¯s not me. The original owner of the apartment just showed up and his condition is terrible.¡±


    ¡°The one who attacked the food corporation?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that one.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve got to see this. I¡¯ll be over in just a bit. Make sure he doesn''t leave.¡±


    ¡°Trust me, that won¡¯t be a problem. Which part of his condition is terrible, did you not understand?¡±


    She hung up on him without saying anything more.


    Trace huffed in exasperation as he began clearing away his stuff. The two pistols went into his courier bag, while the scout rifles he simply left on the short table while choosing to scoot it out of the way. His duffel bag went on top of everything as a barrier of sorts to prevent easy access to the good stuff.


    Finally, the wheezing corpse of a man reached the couch and collapsed onto it. ¡°I think we should probably talk. I¡¯m known as Pushman in edger circles, you can call me that for now. What about yourself?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m called Tune. I¡¯m just starting out.¡± Trace replied, content to let the man get his breath back and take the conversation at his own pace.


    ¡°Why are you in my apartment?¡±


    ¡°I fell onto your balcony while escaping from a job. I was injured from the fall, and the place was obviously unoccupied at the time from the layer of dust. Once I saw everything in the office, I understood why and figured you had died somewhere after making your escape. I mean, it¡¯s been weeks now. My old place was compromised, and this one was paid for so¡­¡± He shrugged, not needing to say anymore.


    Pushman tried to chuckle, the sound turning into a nasty-sounding wheeze. ¡°I can¡¯t say I wouldn¡¯t have done something similar in your place. I¡¯m going to need my apartment back now though. You can stay here until you can find a new place, but I¡¯m taking the bed.¡±


    That was less than ideal. However, a part of Trace had always known his time in the apartment was limited. It had simply come to a close sooner than expected, is all. At least he hadn¡¯t gotten rid of the crates he had used to move all of his stuff in with. He would be needing them again, it seemed.


    If Trace wanted to, he could have ended the man and been done with the matter. It wouldn¡¯t have been hard. He practically had two feet and three-quarters of his body in the grave already. That wasn¡¯t his style. Besides, the man had information Trace could use later on when he went after the ¡®Siren¡¯s Rush¡¯ corporation for what they had done to Ko.


    Besides, the man was being fairly congenial to someone who had clearly been squatting in his place for weeks.


    ¡°I¡¯ll start moving my stuff back into the crates later.¡± Trace tilted his head to the large, wheeled crates in the corner of the room. ¡°I¡¯m curious though, what made you suddenly change your plan of attack on the corporation? According to what I could figure out from everything in the office, you have been planning this attack for years. You had all, or at least most, of the details, and what looked like a really solid plan. Then suddenly you threw it out the window for what amounted to little more than a frontal assault. A semi-effective one, but not one that was nearly as damaging as what you could have otherwise done.¡±


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Pushman took in a long shuddering breath, as his eyes closed in remembrance. ¡°I suppose I never did include any of that in my plans, did I? No, there wouldn¡¯t have been a reason to. Sekmore Snak-Co,¡± The name came out as a tired, beaten snarl. ¡°My sister used to work for them. She was one of the people in their labs, as a lab tech of some sort, I believe. I used to be so proud of her for having a proper corporate job.¡±


    Trace gently sat on top of the duffel bag, as he became engrossed in the man¡¯s tale.


    ¡°Then she got sick. Apparently, Sekmore saw nothing wrong with testing some of their products on their own employees. They called them free samples and passed them around to all the lower-level techs. None of them knew enough to find it suspicious that those above them never got any of those samples.¡± By this point, Pushman had worked himself into a rage and had spittle flying from his lips.


    His face grew redder by the minute with anger and the loss of airflow, as he continued to struggle to breathe. Not that he was going to let that stop him from finishing the story in his current state. He would either finish it or pass out, likely both either way.


    ¡°Everyone who got the samples became sick after a while. It took months, by which point Sekmore Snak-Co had declared the product safe and started delivering it to the public. It wasn¡¯t. Her internal organs started to fail one by one. At first, the company paid for cyberware replacements. Then she was let go, along with everyone else that was having similar problems."


    A tear trickled down his face as he continued. ¡°I was taking care of her, and she was starting to get better. All she needed was one more organ replacement, nothing big, you understand. At least, nothing else seemed to be degrading, and a few of the lesser affected organs even seemed to be getting better. It had taken two-years, and I don¡¯t even want to think about how cyberware organ replacements, but she had turned the corner.


    ¡°She died on the operating table, complete system shutdown the mender said. I didn¡¯t believe them of course. I wouldn¡¯t have, even if the corporate suits hadn¡¯t shown up to confiscate her body. They just took it and claimed that now that she was dead, her body belonged to them. They had been waiting nearby.¡± Pushman¡¯s face had taken on a distinctly red-purplish hue as he swayed from side to side. ¡°I never even got to say goodbye to her.¡±


    With those finishing words, he collapsed to the side, completely out cold.


    Trace listened to him breathe for a few moments before standing and moving over to the crates. It was time to start gathering up his stuff.


    The man¡¯s story was sad, and it did explain why he had suddenly lost it. However, it hadn¡¯t been Trace¡¯s sister who died, and unfortunately, that sort of story had some frightfully common elements to it for a lot of people out there.


    The corporations were the ones who ruled the city. The local government was more figurehead than actual authority, thanks in large part to how useless the police department was. The mayor had tried creating his own special forces unit at one point, only for the corporations to eliminate them all with extreme prejudice.


    Laws meant nothing when you had no power to uphold them.


    So, while Trace sympathized with the man, in the end, it was simply another variation of a story he had heard before.


    His clothes and a portion of Pushman¡¯s better-fitting ones went into the first crate, along with all his tech supplies. The second crate he began filling up with things from the office. The new guns he had grabbed during the job and then left on the floor earlier and all his ammo. The new guns had been too large and too many to fit inside his stuffed duffel bag.


    After that, he grabbed all his other items that had been left in there, along with the other system breaching module.


    He wasn¡¯t going to steal the other modules, but he was certainly going to take that one. It was too useful not too.


    If he had a choice, he would grab the computer as well, but he had a feeling that Pushman would object if he did that. Although that reminded him, there was that one in the apartment above them that he had really liked.


    Trace left out the climbing suction cups and the rope, just in case. Maybe he could get Ko to help him later. Bringing it down the elevator wouldn¡¯t exactly be inconspicuous though¡­


    Hmm, he couldn¡¯t make up his mind.


    Ko sent him a message to let him know she had arrived, and there was a soft knock on the door a minute or so later.


    ¡°Really?¡± He asked when he opened the door. Standing on the other side was not only Ko, but also Sevorah.


    She shrugged. ¡°What? You said he was really injured. I figured we¡¯d need the extra help.¡±


    ¡°Hi, Sevorah,¡± He grumbled politely, ¡°Hopefully, you managed to find a warehouse or something that I can also use as an apartment.¡±


    They followed him inside, immediately noticing the mostly filled crates.


    ¡°Ahh, he already set about kicking you out, did he?¡± Ko surmised.


    He grunted. ¡°Eh, Pushman, that¡¯s his edger name, was polite about it. He offered his couch. But would you really want to keep the person who had been squatting in your apartment around? It¡¯s better if I just leave. I got a few free weeks out of the place, so I¡¯m not too mad about the trade. I do need to reset his permissions though. I thought he¡¯d died, so I placed him as inactive on everything.¡±


    While they were talking, Sevorah had already started removing some of her equipment and begun examining the passed-out Pushman.


    ¡°Whoever took care of him did enough to keep him alive, it looks like, and that¡¯s it. He is going to need a lot of rest and recuperation time at the bare minimum.¡±


    Ko peeked over her mentor¡¯s shoulder and let out a long-impressed whistle. ¡°They may have kept him alive, but the patchwork is substandard. I could do better than that. I don¡¯t know of any clinics in the area who do this kind of shoddy work.¡±


    Trace looked over at them from where he was putting the remaining titanium marbles into a small pouch and then into a pocket in his courier bag. ¡°After attacking a corporation like that, you honestly think he went to an official clinic? My bet is he went to the absolute dirtiest back-alley slicer he could find.¡±


    Ko winced. ¡°If he did, then he is lucky to even be alive.¡±


    There were traditionally three forms of medical care for people, without getting into the more esoteric stuff. The first were doctors. They worked almost exclusively with corpos due to how expensive they were. They had the best training and emergency services hired exclusively from among their properly trained ranks.


    The second was menders, such as Sevorah. This was who most people with any sense and a modicum of money sought out for medical care. They were taught in a master and apprentice-type situation. They were under a union that made sure their skills were up to a certain standard before they could begin practicing on their own. The union also helped them seek out additional knowledge and parts on occasion, but largely left them alone after they were certified. As long as they paid their dues, anyway.


    The last group was by far the worst. They were called slicers because that is exactly what they did. They sliced into you. They were completely unregulated and entirely self-taught hack-jobs with a propensity for death. Anytime you visited one, you were taking your life in your own hands, as they were just as likely to kill you for parts as heal you. It was to no one¡¯s surprise that a large number of slicers eventually became scavs later on.

 Chapter 32

    In the end, Sevorah had decided that the best move was simply to bring him back to her clinic.


    So, Trace had finished packing up his stuff and wheeled both crates out into the elevator. He had made sure to reactivate Pushman¡¯s account in the apartment first, of course. Then they had all ridden down to his new-to-him truck together.


    The drive to Sevorah¡¯s clinic was mostly quiet, as each of them was absorbed in their own thoughts.


    Trace helped them bring Pushman inside, only to stand uncertainly to the side afterward. He no longer had a place to live, and no idea what he should do next.


    Sevorah solved that particular problem for him when she sent a message to him with an address. ¡°Go there and make sure it will fit your needs. The price was decent, but you¡¯ll have to do a fair bit of remodeling yourself, I imagine as a result. The photos I saw showed a lot of promise, but also a lot of problem areas. With your budget though¡­¡± She shrugged. ¡°Make sure you get whatever agreement and contract you make signed as ironclad as possible if you plan on fixing the place up. You don¡¯t want to get kicked out after putting in all that work.¡±


    ¡°I appreciate it. Let me know how things turn out with him.¡± He pointed his chin at Pushman. ¡°Ko, call me later so we can talk, yeah?¡±


    She nodded, busy gathering up the supplies they were going to use on the man.


    Back out in the truck, he pulled up Sevorah¡¯s message and retrieved the address and contact for the owner. The price listed was still higher than he really wanted to pay. However, the size of the place more than made up for any hesitation he might have felt.


    When he had asked them to find a warehouse to store his eventual piles of loot, they had taken the request seriously. The building really was an old warehouse, and its age showed, even in the rather well-taken photos. Rust was everywhere, and walkways that had once run the length of the walls, and hung from the ceiling, now sagged dangerously, or had completely fallen to the ground.


    It had potential, and plenty of room. From the photos, that was all he was willing to say about the place at the moment.


    At least it was reasonably close to Sevorah¡¯s clinic.


    A few minutes later, he pulled past the old chain-link fence with the sagging gate, and stopped directly in front of the doors to wait. He almost climbed out to start inspecting the place, but managed to stop himself at the last moment. This was not his normal neighborhood, not yet at least. There was no telling what sort of people made this area their home, or worse, their hunting grounds.


    Trace spent his time wisely while he waited for the owner. His eyes flicked through their different magnifications as he searched for any gang tags or signs of people. He even tried to search for thermal signatures, only to find it completely useless in the heat of the day. The sun on the pavement, metal, and glass that was all around him had raised the temperature to minor oven temperatures.


    Either way, he didn¡¯t find anything that set off any warning bells at the moment.


    The owner arrived as he opened his door, deciding at last that it was safe.


    ¡°Have you gone in yet?¡± The short, lopsided man asked.


    He was short, to begin with, and his condition had been made even worse with a cyberware leg that was a couple of inches shorter than his fleshware leg was. Either he had gotten a bad deal, or more likely, he had possessed the augment since he was younger and still growing. Despite its ill-fitting nature, the man likely saw it as part of himself now and didn¡¯t want to risk complications with dysmorphia and the possible risk of going cyberpsycho by having it replaced.


    ¡°Not yet. I was busy checking out the area for signs of gang activity, trying to find out who else was around here first.¡± Trace replied.


    ¡°Smart, smart,¡± The man said as he turned to lead him inside the warehouse, saying nothing more on the matter. He had an odd loping stride that accommodated his shorter leg.


    The inside of the warehouse was just as the photos had shown, except worse. It was a dive.


    There were holes in the ceiling where it had been rusted through and rusty rainwater had gotten in and begun collecting all over the floor.


    Despite the terrible condition of the place, Trace followed along behind the man as he went through the tour. It had an office in the back with a rather questionable bathroom. The water that it used to flush the bowl was rusty and smelled worse than anything Trace could ever hope to release, even on his worst day. However, it worked.


    There was an open-air sani-spray shower in the corner meant to spray the workers down after their shift was over. It had been disconnected from the system, but Georgie, the owner, said he would work on getting it reconnected if Trace rented the place.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    All-in-all, the place was an absolute disaster, and he wanted way too many credits for it.


    Then he showed Trace what made the place so special. It had a decently hidden underground floor. The elevator that took them down was one of two entrances. A pair of stairs hidden behind a door in the office space, and a large loading elevator with seams that had been designed to match the rest of the floor. Of course, he couldn¡¯t actually see what was down there, as it was partially flooded at the moment.


    From what he could see though, it ran the entire length of the building, and possibly even a little beyond. There were plenty of braces and struts to ensure both floors were secure and in no danger of collapsing. The only issue was all of the water that made its way down through the many cracks over the years.


    He would be pumping it out for weeks and then drying the place out for several more.


    ¡°Okay, I can see the appeal of this place. However, the fact remains. The basement floor is unusable at the moment, and everything on the main floor needs a lot of work.¡± Trace told him with a shake of his head. ¡°What you¡¯re asking for rent is an absolute joke. Unless, of course, you¡¯re the one paying to have the place fixed up and all that water drained.¡±


    Georgie scratched his chin. ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll take twenty-five hundred off the rent.¡± He finally acquiesced after they had been going back and forth on the price for a while.


    That was still higher than Trace really wanted to pay, but that was mainly just the poor-person in him peeking out. Realistically, he knew there wasn¡¯t another warehouse like this for the price. That didn¡¯t stop him from hesitating.


    ¡°Fine,¡± He told the smaller man at last. ¡°I¡¯ll take it, draw up the rental agreement. One with no funny business in it. If I¡¯m the one paying for all the fixes to this place, then we are going to have a nice secure contract between us.¡±


    The owner swallowed but nodded emphatically. ¡°Of course, I wouldn¡¯t dream of it.¡±


    ***


    As soon as Georgie was gone, Trace brought his truck inside the warehouse and parked it next to the office.


    This was not what he¡¯d had in mind when he originally thought about renting a warehouse. Circumstances had forced his hand, and credits were still a very real concern. Paying for this place was expensive!


    It was far cheaper than other warehouses, but it was still more expensive than just renting an apartment would have been. Trace dropped his head against the steering wheel, wondering if he had made a mistake. Was he moving too fast?


    Things hadn¡¯t exactly been going to plan lately. What if that trend continued in the future?


    He let himself wallow for a few minutes before hopping out and beginning to get to work by unloading everything. The office, which for the moment, was going to become his apartment, wasn¡¯t going to clean itself. Nor were his crates and other belongings going to move themselves in without his input.


    Trace worked late into the evening, to finally get it into a somewhat livable condition. There was no bed, so he would either be sleeping on the floor with the bugs -no- or on top of the desk. The second option was uncomfortable, but vastly preferable.


    The place only looked clean, but that didn¡¯t mean it actually was. Who knew what lived behind the walls or within the tiny gaps that he had gradually exposed throughout the day? Either he needed to completely remodel the place, which he didn¡¯t have the skills or experience for. Or he could buy a few industrial-grade, bug, and rodent smoke bombs. The kind where one was meant to be enough for the entire warehouse.


    Put two of those in the office/apartment space while he was out on a job after making sure all the gaps on the outside were sealed. Yeah, that otta work. Afterward, he could use some sort of sealant to fill all the gaps inside to prevent future bug and rodent infestations.


    Trace sighed and sent off several messages. He needed more work and a lot of it. At least he finally had a way to get around and some decent weapons. The best of which he stored on the rear seat of his truck for the moment. The others he kept in the duffel bag to sell when he got a chance.


    He also took a moment to swap his battered scout rifle for one of the new ones after deciding to keep them both. The thrashed one he would sell.


    The two crates he wheeled around to behind the office/apartment structure where they would be out of sight for the moment. There wasn¡¯t much room back there, but there were the remains of a covered shed that sat between the wall of the warehouse and the structure.


    A job broker he had worked with a few times by the name of Revlock wanted to meet with him about a possible job opportunity.


    He would take the time while he was out to run a few errands. He needed to sell some guns and get those smoke bombs if possible. It might be one of those things that was ultra-regulated, and he would need to pay someone else to set up and do it.


    A while later and a decent amount of credits richer, he was sitting across from Revlock and the client. In-person client visits like this were rare at his level, but as you moved up the edger tiers, they became more common. Those jobs generally required more discretion, and the client wanted to meet the edger they were hiring to vet the proverbial talent themselves.


    As a tier one edger, meeting the client was pretty rare. It still happened, obviously, just not often.


    Revlock had his normal brand-new unlit cigar sticking out the side of his mouth. Trace had never seen the man smoke one of them. Personally, he thought Revlock just liked chewing on them. He had a nice suit vest on, with a normal long-sleeve shirt on underneath. As for pants, well, those weren¡¯t dress pants either, they were tactical pants, along with heavy-duty boots.


    Revlock was a job broker, but he was also an edger, just one not allowed to take jobs from himself.


    The client had been staring at Trace ever since they arrived. Her eyes boring into him uncomfortably.


    ¡°So, are you going to tell me what the job is already?¡± He asked, beginning to grow uncomfortable under her penetrating gaze. ¡°She¡¯s been staring at me like I¡¯m her next meal for the last few minutes. It¡¯s starting to get a tad weird at this point.¡±


    Revlock laughed and nodded to the client. ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s an odd one alright, but she wanted to meet you specifically.¡±


    ¡°Me? Why?¡±


    ¡°She heard you had a recent run-in with an android and decided you fit the needs of her job.¡± Revlock¡¯s smile vanished as a gun appeared in his hand. The barrel was pressed against the client¡¯s head. ¡°Interestingly enough, that was something I only just heard about. So, I would love to hear how some outsider heard the details about a private gig?¡± He demanded, his voice hard and uncompromising.

 Chapter 33

    Trace felt a curse escape his mouth as the woman¡¯s neck twisted in a way it wasn¡¯t supposed to. ¡°She¡¯s an android too.¡±


    Revlock nodded and pressed the barrel of his gun even tighter against her head. ¡°The question is, what kind of android is she? A puppet, an AI, or a braincase holder?¡±


    ¡°All three have their own quirks. Who can rightly say?¡± Trace muttered.


    People viewed braincases as a sort of immortality, and it was. What they failed to realize is you also spent a lot of time stuck in your head. So much of the human experience was about sensation and tactile feelings. Meanwhile, only a small part of that had been replicated after all this time.


    Many of them spent their time on the net, interacting with others in their avatar-like spark forms, which had no such limitations.


    Regardless, those who spent too much time on the net or inside their own mind inevitably became a tad¡­ odd.


    ¡°I am me,¡± The woman said at last.


    ¡°Great, because that really clears things up,¡± Revlock muttered with an annoyed sigh. ¡°Listen, I¡¯m sorry for involving you in this Tune, but I needed to draw her out to find out where the leak came from.¡±


    Trace shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s fine. I¡¯d rather not have to worry about looking over my shoulder if I don¡¯t need to. By all means, let¡¯s find out what she knows and how she came across it.¡±


    ¡°Interesting. Your caution is warranted. The one whose puppet you destroyed is not pleased with you in the slightest. It is one of many, but they are expensive. However, the deal you made with his subordinates is holding him back for now. We shall see how long that lasts.¡± The android woman told Trace with a hint of smirk.


    ¡°Who is it you¡¯re talking about? What¡¯s his name?¡± He demanded.


    Her tongue clicked heavily against the roof of her mouth. ¡°Ah, ah, ah, consider that something you must find out on your own. I found out who you were easily enough. I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll be able to as well, though I plugged that particular leak for you myself.¡±


    ¡°Why are you doing this? What do you get out of helping me?¡±


    ¡°Entertainment for one,¡± Her voice suddenly contained several lifetime''s worth of weary tiredness. ¡°But also, you can consider the corporation he works for and his boss an old foe of mine. Anything that disrupts their plans is a good thing, in my opinion.¡±


    Revlock raised a brow at the odd direction this meeting had gone. ¡°How worried does he need to be?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re a corporation, so very.¡± The android woman answered dryly. ¡°However, they will be trying to discover who created the job against them first and why. After all of that has been accomplished, I would expect a small team to come after him, led personally by the one whose android he destroyed. If he can survive that, then they may let him be, or they might escalate things again. They have a history of doing both.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯re not going to tell us who it is that we¡¯re up against, are you?¡± Trace asked.


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t believe I am. That would ruin the fun for me. Besides, if you do manage to learn who they are and survive, then I might have a few jobs for you in the future.¡± She brushed the barrel of Revlock¡¯s gun away from her head and stood. ¡°I just deposited some credits into the previously agreed-upon account. Consider it a consolation payment for the deception.¡±


    With that, she stood and walked out, with neither of them trying to stop her.


    ¡°I think my life is getting more and more complicated lately,¡± Trace muttered. ¡°I¡¯m not sure I like it. We, or at least I, never even learned what her name was either.¡±


    The job broker laughed and sent him a deposit for a thousand credits. ¡°Here you go. Whoever she was, she was loaded. Her version of a few credits was equal to the same amount of a full job for someone at your tier.¡±


    ¡°At this point, I¡¯ll take it.¡± He said with a shake of his head. ¡°I just moved into an absolute wreck of a place, and it needs so much work. Speaking of which, do know where I can get those smoke bomb things that kill bugs and rodents?¡±


    ¡°They don¡¯t sell those things. You have to have a company do it for you.¡±


    ¡°Ah, I thought that might be the case. I don¡¯t suppose you know of any good ones?¡± Trace asked hopefully.


    ***


    By the time Trace returned to the warehouse, the truck was loaded down with all sorts of supplies. He had made a run by the junkyard to see what he could find. Along with his usual tech items, he had also picked up a literal ton of sheet metal. All of which he had been forced to load by hand with the help of the other scavengers in the area.


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    His arms hated him at the moment, as he had returned the help in kind.


    After doing all of that, he had made a few stops for appliances, food, blankets, and the like. The only item he hadn¡¯t picked up was a bed, as that would need to wait until after the place had been debugged. Thankfully, Revlock had known of a company that did the work and they had been able to fit him in the next day.


    It had already been a long day by that point. Before he went to sleep, there was one last thing he needed to do. Which was to unload the fridge and get it plugged in. Drinking warm soda was unpalatable but doable, drinking warm food-in-a-cans on the other hand was just plain nasty.


    Sleeping on the desk was as uncomfortable as he feared it would be. His hipbone dug into the solid top every time he turned onto his side. While sleeping on his stomach, as was normal for him, hurt his ribs. Eventually, he settled onto his back and found a position that was somewhat comfortable.


    It wasn¡¯t the worst sleep he had ever gotten, but it was also nowhere near the best either.


    When he rolled off the desk the next morning, he felt as though he had barely gotten any sleep. Despite that, the now familiar pops and cracks echoed through the space as his body adjusted to the repairs that had been done to it throughout the night.


    - Skeletal System Repair (Percent Completed): 77%


    - Muscular System Repair (Percent Completed): 35%


    The speed for his skeletal repair had slowed to a crawl the last few days. His muscular system was still progressing at a decent pace, but even it was starting to slow as well.


    The problem was, he didn¡¯t know why. Was it because he was missing vitamins or nutrients in his diet or something else? Was this normal behavior for a body undergoing repairs? All he could do was wait and see while continuing to eat as well as he could.


    Two of the food-in-a-cans went down his gullet, followed by a couple of sodas to help rehydrate his body.


    With that out of the way, he sent off a message to Sevorah asking about Pushman¡¯s condition. Next, he sent off a message to Stick-Point asking about the decision the group had made.


    With those out of the way, he went to work unloading everything else from the truck. The sheet metal would be useful for patching the holes in the ceiling.


    He would need to find a way to get the metal up there and then also buy a welding unit. Which was something that he had never done before, and while he was interested in learning to do it. He had to wonder if it was simply better to pay someone else to do the work on the roof for him.


    There was only so much time in the day, and even with the enhanced teaching modules, it would be hard to learn everything that he wanted.


    For the moment at least, he needed to focus on the items that he really wanted to learn. Maybe, in the future, that would change, but for now, he needed to prioritize.


    Which, unfortunately, meant spending credits.


    He had gotten the metal, but it was highly likely that someone else would be doing the actual work on the roof. If he found someone to do that work, then he would also ask them to fix the walkways that had fallen all over the place.


    Again, credits.


    The various pieces of tech that he had gotten from the junkyard were easy to remove from the truck. The heavy pieces of metal, much less so. Eventually, he got it done, but the truck bed had a couple of new scratches to show for his efforts.


    During his time in the junkyard, he had made a concerted effort to look for specific items. In the past, he had just picked up whatever caught his eye and looked interesting. This time, he had been searching for equipment that he would be able to use once fixed. Pieces that would be useful in the warehouse. As a result, he had even come across three water pumps.


    None of them were particularly high-flow models. If he could get them working though, then they would get the process of draining the basement started. These were a little more mechanical than electrical in design, so fixing them took a while longer than he had originally thought it would. Mainly because he had been forced to make several runs out for broken parts that he couldn¡¯t simply fix. If he had grabbed more of them, then he might have been able to swap them out, foregoing that need entirely.


    However, by the time the company came around to debug the place, he had managed to get two of the three working.


    The impellers inside had been absolutely destroyed in the first two. The third one, on the other hand, suffered from a completely burned-out motor. Which only left him with two real options, throwing it out, or rewinding it himself. Replacing the motor wasn¡¯t financially feasible.


    He would keep the pump in a corner for parts, or until he decided he wanted to rewind the motor himself. That wasn¡¯t something his lessons had covered extensively. It was different from the electrical engineering he was pursuing at the moment. It would either be covered in the more advanced lessons that he didn¡¯t have access to. Or it was more in line with mechanical engineering. He could see arguments being made for both.


    Either way, he hadn¡¯t learned how to do it yet. So, the pump went into the corner.


    He would make another run to the junkyard later to see what he could find. Along with more pumps, he also needed hoses for the water to run through. Without them, he would just be spraying the water pointlessly into the air.


    As soon as he was done with the pumps, he started taping up the outside of the structure. He was putting quick-drying caulk and tape at every opening and joint he could find. The idea was to remove any gaps through which annoyances could escape and then later get back in.


    It was something that he didn¡¯t need to worry about.


    The company set up a sealed tent around the entire apartment office space, tossed a few smoke bombs into it, and were done. They were quick, efficient, and warned Trace not to enter before they removed the tent the next day. Their services also drained his account to near-empty status.


    Sitting in the back of his truck bed, Trace had his courier bag sitting beside him. He was in the process of doing some work he had been putting off. The ink-sheet he had recovered from the android was in his hands, and the many data prisms would be inspected next.


    A data cable from his NetConnect connected him to the device. It was done in a virtual-sandboxed environment that kept it separate from his own files and hardware. That way, if there was any malware or other suspicious files, it wouldn¡¯t be able to damage his main OS while he looked through it.


    The scans hadn¡¯t revealed anything, but it never hurt to be careful. It only took one time, after all, for everything to go wrong.

 Chapter 34

    Trace copied files from the ink-sheet as he went along. He didn¡¯t trust the device to not have a remote wipe option on it. So, he grabbed everything that he could while he had the chance.


    There weren¡¯t actually all that many files on it. As far as he could tell, there were only a few that had come from the day he had taken it, and that was it. Each of the files was related to logistics in some form or another. He was sure someone would have found them interesting and perhaps even useful, but he wasn¡¯t one of them.


    Regardless, he kept the files in the sandbox environment for later use, just in case.


    Setting the ink-sheet to the side, he picked up the closest data prism and plugged it into his NetConnect, only to unplug it a moment later. It was empty.


    It was the same with the next one as well.


    The third, however, contained what appeared to be a supply route for their weapon sellers inside the city. He set that one to the side, to give to Stick-Point later. Maybe he could give it to the client so they would quit creating so much noise.


    The remainder all had a variety of schematics and diagrams for their low-quality guns. Nothing special, but he would look through them later and see what he could learn. It was possible that there might be one or two nuggets of good information buried in the refuse.


    After that, he moved on to the data prisms he had recovered from the dead gangsters.


    Trace popped each in, only to remove it a second later, as he felt a wave of second-degree embarrassment for those men and women. There had been so much porn. It was as if they had no other hobbies!


    Gingerly, he picked them up and put them back into the pocket of his courier bag. He wasn¡¯t even sure if he could sell something like that. What else was he supposed to do with them? Possibly wipe the data, and just keep them in case he needed the space for his own items?


    He might stop picking up data prisms from people at this rate. They weren¡¯t worth a lot if he resold them, and when he went through them, he kept coming across weird stuff.


    When he had finished everything, he had a couple of messages waiting for him.


    The one from Stick-Point was particularly annoying.


    ¡®It was decided that you performed above and beyond what could have been expected of you for such a job. As such, it has been declared completed and the payout will be done in full. However, your rep will still take a small hit because of the client¡¯s complaints.¡¯


    Trace scoffed at that and glanced at the data prism and ink-sheet with a shake of his head. ¡®That¡¯s too bad. You should tell the client that I was going to turn over a data prism and ink-sheet I had recovered to you. They both contain some information the client might have found interesting. Nothing exciting, but it could have proven useful to them. Now, I¡¯m just going to wipe them both and add them to my growing stash.¡¯


    He sent off the message and opened the one from Sevorah. ¡®He¡¯ll make it, but whoever worked on him did him few favors outside of keeping him alive. The state of his natural body is bad, and his cyberware is little better. I think the only reason the slicer left him with everything is because of how damaged they all are. For the moment, I have him in a medically induced coma, while I pump him full of nutrients and slow-acting healing stims.¡¯


    It continued for a bit longer, letting him know just how bad Pushman¡¯s condition actually was. In all likelihood, if he hadn¡¯t called Ko the other day, he wouldn¡¯t have survived for much longer.


    At least now he had some more time to go through and swipe a few more of the modules he wanted. Pushman wouldn¡¯t be missing them anytime soon, it seemed.


    If he wanted, he could even move back into the apartment, though that was an idea he quickly disregarded. He already had a place of his own. He wasn¡¯t going to avoid it simply because it was uncomfortable.


    ***


    A day later, he had four pumps with hoses all running in the basement. They were draining the water into the sewer, raising the outflow into the nearby ponds by several inches.


    He could maybe add another two pumps before he risked drawing attention because of the increased water coming from the sewers. Not that anyone would necessarily care. Either way, his earlier estimates were way off. It was going to take far longer than a few weeks to drain the water from the basement. There were thousands of gallons trapped down there and he was pumping it through a few four-inch hoses.


    Even if he turned up the power on each of them, it would be awhile before the place was empty.


    The tent around the office-turned-apartment was gone, and it had revealed an absolutely disgusting mess. There were mounds of bugs and rodents all over the place. He had pushed them into the sewer and then scrubbed the place down. After he was sure everything was clean, he had sealed every hole he could find. It didn¡¯t matter if it was on the wall, floor, or ceiling. It had received a dose of caulk sealing it.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    Once that was done, he went through and redid the outside of the place again.


    Only then did he stop to get a bed and retrieve Deckard¡¯s braincase from Ko.


    It had been a busy couple of days, but now that he had a place to properly sleep, he was feeling better about everything.


    Ko was surprisingly happy to pass the braincase off to him. She had taken the time to run him through their scanners and come up completely empty. The case was shielded. There was nothing she could do on that side of things. When she had tried to connect to the port with their equipment, it had requested a handshake and password. When they weren¡¯t provided, the cable had melted.


    Thankfully, the equipment itself was unharmed.


    Regardless, after making some adjustments to his nutrient mix, she wanted nothing more to do with the braincase at that point.


    Deckard would either wake up or he wouldn¡¯t, she had decided.


    Trace went into the clinic and found her helping Sevorah install a new leg on a little girl. They had moved out of the operating room and back into the main area as they worked on completing the settings for her.


    Placed in the corner of the room was Pushman. He had two different IV bags hooked into him and a machine that monitored his vitals. Other than that, he was being ignored for the moment.


    ¡°I¡¯m impressed,¡± Sevorah was telling Ko, as he walked in. ¡°Your grasp of the basics has really improved recently. It¡¯s had a noticeable effect on the quality of your work. You were always good¡­ for someone with the amount of limited real-world practice you¡¯ve had. Now you¡¯re getting to the point where I would say you are just plain good. You aren¡¯t there yet, and it¡¯s only for something like what we did today. Still, that¡¯s a lot of improvement. Good job.¡±


    Ko bowed her head, partly to hide her blush, and partly to conceal the complicated expression she was feeling at the moment. The knowledge package from the G.H.O.S.T. System was responsible for her sudden improvement, not her own hard work. It felt a little disingenuous to accept Sevorah¡¯s praise, and yet it still felt good to be recognized.


    She would need to come to terms with how much of the knowledge was hers versus from the knowledge upgrade. From his own understanding of the process, it could be hard to tell the two apart.


    ¡°How¡¯s it going?¡± He asked softly, so as not to startle them too badly.


    Sevorah looked up at him and then went back to making her minute adjustments inside the leg. She was making the last of the physical settings, while Ko was working on the setting in the software side of things.


    ¡°That receptionist of ours really let you back here while we were still with a patient?¡± Sevorah asked without looking up.


    ¡°I waited until she took a restroom break and then walked past the desk while it was empty. You really should hire more people.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s never been an issue before you started coming around.¡± She closed the panel on the leg and sealed it shut with some precise welds from a laser attached to the ceiling for that exact purpose. ¡°Ko, I¡¯ll finish up here. Why don¡¯t you and your boyfriend go do something fun? And don¡¯t forget to bring me back some lunch.¡± She finished with a wink.


    ¡°Friend!¡± Ko protested. ¡°He¡¯s not my boyfriend. I haven¡¯t known him long enough for that.¡±


    ¡°Ah, so what I hear you saying is that time is the only thing holding us apart?¡± Trace inquired, coming up behind her to blow lightly on her ear.


    She jumped to her feet with a beet-red face and stormed from the room amidst their laughs.


    ¡°Be careful with her,¡± Sevorah commanded him after Ko had left. ¡°She usually holds everyone at a distance. You managed to sneak your way inside her defenses. If you hurt her, there won¡¯t even be enough left of you for the scavs to bother picking you up. We understand each other?¡±


    He nodded. ¡°Just to be clear though, I don¡¯t have any intention of hurting her. I think she is cute, and I wouldn¡¯t mind having something more with her. At the same time, I¡¯ve never been in a relationship before or really wanted to be in one either. I know Stick-Point has told you about how poor I was growing up. No one wants to be with someone like that. So, if she wants something more, she needs to be the one to make the move. I wouldn¡¯t even know how.¡±


    Sevorah sighed. ¡°That is a weird problem to have, but okay. I¡¯ll believe you for now.¡±


    He turned to leave, only to pause as a thought came to him. ¡°Would it be possible to get a nutrient shot? I feel as though my body is running low on everything, and I¡¯ve been trying to take better care of myself recently.¡±


    ¡°If what Stick-Point told me is true about how you grew up, then I wouldn¡¯t be surprised. Sure, I¡¯ll have some ready for when you get back. Now get out of here. I have work to do.¡±


    Ko had grabbed the bag with Deckard¡¯s braincase and was waiting for him by the now-occupied front desk. The receptionist was glaring at him with eyes that promised death, or at least a spiked drink, if he ever took anything from her.


    ¡°You ready? I just had to ask Sevorah something.¡±


    She nodded, and they were off.


    Inside the truck, Trace just started driving, not having a particular destination in mind. This hadn¡¯t been part of his plan when he went to the clinic earlier, not that he was opposed to spending time with Ko.


    ¡°Is there any place you want to go in particular, or style of food you¡¯re craving?¡± He brought up his credit balance and barely held back a wince. Yeah, it was definitely time to start working like there was no tomorrow. He had enough for lunch, but that was about it. All his recent expenses had drained what had so recently been the fattest account he¡¯d ever had, almost dry.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say no to some Korean food if you¡¯re up for the drive. As for what I want to do¡­¡± She hesitated. ¡°I don¡¯t know that it counts as a want, but there is a supply drop scheduled for one of the cities in Utah later tonight. I think we should watch it. The steel goddess only sends them down once a month or so, and she alone picks the sites they are sent to.¡±


    ¡°That feels awfully close to us considering the timing,¡± Trace muttered, glancing at the braincase containing the brain of the Steel Goddess Meredith¡¯s son. ¡°Maybe you¡¯re right though. Where should we watch it? I don¡¯t have a screen set up at the warehouse.¡±


    She blinked silently. ¡°I, uh, we could, uh, my place-¡± She shook her head. ¡°Nope.¡±


    Trace laughed at her reaction. She was fine coming over to his place, but the thought of him going over to her apartment was too much. ¡°It¡¯s fine. I¡¯m sure we can find a restaurant or something that is showing the drop.¡±


    He would just need to sell all the extra data prisms and other items he had collected to make sure he could afford it.

 Chapter 35

    They were close to the restaurant when an emergency message ran across Trace¡¯s vision.


    ¡®A cyberpsycho has been reported in your area. A bounty has been issued for their successful death or apprehension. All edgers and personnel involved will receive part of the payout. Proceed with caution, as they have been deemed extremely dangerous. The individual was last seen at the intersection of-¡®


    Ko had gripped his arm tightly as she read her own version of the message. She wasn¡¯t an edger, however, as a mender¡¯s apprentice she would be connected to her own emergency network for when things like this happened.


    ¡°We need to go and help the people in the area. And you need to do what you can to kill that person.¡± She told him, firmly.


    Trace felt his brows rise in surprise. That wasn¡¯t quite the response he had been expecting from her.


    ¡°You¡¯ve never seen what a cyberpsycho is like, or can do, have you?¡±


    He shook his head as he refocused on the road and sped up.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡­ terrifying. Even the moderate cases, the ones where they haven¡¯t completely lost themselves to the insanity, are beyond unpleasant. The vast majority of those, after regaining control of their minds, once they realize what they did while in that state, end up taking their own lives. Trust me, there is no coming back for these people. You¡¯ll see when you find¡­¡±


    She paused to pull up the cyberpsycho¡¯s information. ¡°Biggie Jolt? What a stupid name. It looks like his cyberware was geared toward taser tech and size. Huh, I guess the name fits. Still stupid though.¡± She shook her head. ¡°It looks like he killed the mender who had just replaced his arm. He did one augment too many. Just be careful. Okay?¡±


    Trace nodded as the truck skidded to a stop at the intersection his message had mentioned. Reaching behind him, he grabbed the courier bag and pulled out the Colter 700 Special 4. The large revolver was already loaded with the four cartridges it could hold. He had his normal CD-10 in its holster on his thigh, like always.


    Unfortunately, he hadn¡¯t gotten a holster for the K-10 yet, so that gun would be staying behind this time.


    ¡°Do you need or want a gun?¡± He motioned to the others in the backseat.


    She shook her head. ¡°Thanks, but I already have one.¡± She met his questioning eyes when he didn¡¯t see a holster anywhere and tapped the small of her back. ¡°Right here. I never go anywhere without it.¡±


    ¡°Ah, well, be careful out there.¡± He passed her the first aid kit he had stored in the truck and hopped out.


    The path of general blood and destruction made it easy to follow and eventually find the cyberpsycho Biggie Jolt. Three other edgers were already there when he arrived, each looking more than a little green at the scene they were witnessing.


    The man had run into an eating area and proceeded to tear apart over twenty people. Everywhere they looked, concrete tables had been broken and lay on their sides. Blood and viscera coated the once-grey surfaces. Pieces of bone had acted like shrapnel and were embedded in the hard surfaces.


    Before Trace had arrived, the cyberpsycho had used the prodigious strength provided by his cyberware arms and unstable state to further rip the people apart.


    One of the edgers couldn¡¯t contain it any longer and vomited to the side.


    While they watched in horrified fascination, the man sat down in a puddle of red, reached across himself, and tore his own cyberware arm off. He carelessly tossed it to the side, forgetting about it immediately as he picked up one of the arms he had torn off the now-dead people.


    As they watched, he tried to fit the mutilated appendage into the now-empty metal socket. He grew increasingly frustrated as it refused to fit and became more damaged. With a scream, he tossed it aside and reached for another.


    Trace finally understood what Ko had been saying. There was no coming back for these people. Even if they did somehow recover enough to start thinking properly, the memories of what they had done would destroy them.


    Raising the revolver, he set his position, steadied his aim, and squeezed the trigger. Using such a large round was probably overkill, but he didn¡¯t want to risk fighting someone who was in that state. It was better to just be done with it in one decisive shot.


    The roar of the powerful revolver blasted through the eating space as the top portion of Biggie Jolt''s body was obliterated in a bloody mist.


    Trace winced. Even with the proper stance and everything else, it had still hurt to fire the gun. Not as much as firing it from around a desk though, nothing compared to that stupidity.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    He met the eyes of the other three edgers and then turned to walk away. He had absolutely no desire to be near that scene any longer than he needed to be. Trace might have a hard time forming attachments with people, but what he had just witnessed was a whole other level of screwed up.


    Ko was standing there a dozen feet behind them with the first aid kit in hand. Her shirt had streaks of blood on it from where she had found people to help before rushing over to help them.


    Silently, she fell in beside him as they began walking back to the truck.


    Trace let his head rest against the seat for a moment, his eyes closed while he simply breathed. ¡°I don¡¯t know about you, but I¡¯m suddenly not that hungry anymore.¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. We still need to eat. I think a smoothie might be a better choice now though, after seeing something like that. It¡¯ll keep our bodies from reacting badly.¡± Her voice was soft and completely emotionless. For all her talk about seeing the horrors of cyberpsychos before, it would take more than a couple of times to become inured to that sort of sight.


    Sevorah immediately knew something was wrong when they returned in a solemn fashion. She set her slowly warming smoothie to the side and faced them both. ¡°What¡¯s wrong? Did something happen? Do I need to get rid of Trace already?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d really rather you didn¡¯t,¡± He said somewhat dully, sitting down with a thump in a nearby chair.


    ¡°There was a cyberpsycho emergency while we were out,¡± Ko told the woman over her shoulder as she headed to the sani-spray sink.


    Sevorah¡¯s entire body stilled for a blink before she whirled and sprang to her feet. An instant later, her hands were poking and prodding at Ko, ensuring the young woman was alright.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine Sev. I was busy helping the few victims that had been left alive in his wake.¡± She hung her head, her now clean hands gripping the edge of the sink tight. ¡°This was a bad one. He was so mentally gone that he must have been ignoring the signs for a while. What happened today could have been avoided if he hadn¡¯t been so fracking-¡±


    Sevorah put her arms around Ko and held her tight. ¡°At least a little of the blame belongs on the mender. It¡¯s our responsibility to make sure the patient isn¡¯t exhibiting any of those symptoms. If he was truly that good of a liar, then that is another matter entirely, but we both know how rare that it is. I¡¯ve seen men, women, teens, and even one or two kids, surprisingly enough, all go cyberpsycho. It is never a pleasant experience and outside of the occasions that involved the true rare sudden onset of it, only with the kids and teens did it actually catch me off guard.¡±


    Sevorah looked at the floor in shame. ¡°The other times, I thought I was good enough to help them beat the odds. That they would make it through the operation just fine, and that was the case with a couple of them. But the risk I was taking wasn¡¯t worth it, and trust me, I¡¯m not the only one who has played the odds. Some of those that I saw happen weren¡¯t my own operations. I didn¡¯t learn from their mistakes. Instead, what I saw were areas where I could have done better.¡±


    She shook her head and slowly turned Ko around to face her. ¡°Don¡¯t be like me, or the others. Be better. If they show signs of mental degradation, get them help. Don¡¯t ever operate on them, no matter what. Promise me, Ko.¡±


    ¡°I promise. I don¡¯t ever want to be responsible for what I saw today.¡±


    ¡°I pray to the steel goddess above that you never are either,¡± Sevorah whispered.


    Trace stood, feeling like he was invading on their family time. ¡°I¡¯ll see you tonight, Ko.¡±


    She waved as he left in a rush. The receptionist stepped aside as he jogged past, her arms full of clothes for Ko. She had seen the blood on Ko¡¯s shirt when they came in, along with their expressions, and decided not to say anything at the time.


    Trace was halfway back to the warehouse when his share of the money from the bounty hit his account. It was a nice bit of money for the amount of work involved. Hunting cyberpsychos was generally an extremely dangerous business. As a result, the bounties paid well for everyone involved.


    They had gotten lucky that time is all.


    With his recent windfall, he decided to change his destination. There were a couple of items he wanted to pick up now that he had the money.


    First up was a proper bed. Sleeping on the desk and floor was just plain uncomfortable, and it had been part of his original plan when he left the warehouse that morning. Then things had gotten out of hand, and well, life happened.


    Trace slapped his hand on the steering wheel. He had forgotten the nutrient shots at the clinic. He prepared and sent off a quick message to Ko.


    ¡®Can you grab the nutrient shots from Sevorah for me? I forgot them at the clinic when I left earlier. I¡¯ll get them from you when we meet up to watch the drop.¡¯


    A while later, the back of his truck was weighed down with what was frankly an absurdly long worktable. It hung out the back of the trunk by over ten feet, and he was pretty sure that he had hit at least one car with it when he¡¯d been turning. All that space would be useful for his projects and his tools. Another three tables of equal size would be there at any moment, along with his bed.


    The cost to have everything delivered had been annoying, but that was part of living in Denver.


    After this, he just needed to have some proper tool chests and start collecting shelves for everything. Then everything would be halfway decent. The roof still needed to be fixed, and the warehouse was still a wreck, but as a workshop, it would be serviceable.


    For the moment, he placed the tables in front of the apartment structure, creating a yard of sorts in front of the door. He would worry about placing everything else later when he wasn¡¯t worried about it all getting stolen in the middle of the night.


    Fixing the roof and making sure the doors were as secure as possible would be his next big expense.


    It was a good thing he had gotten a few different messages about jobs throughout the day that would be able to work on the next day. There weren¡¯t any high-paying jobs for the most part, or ones that required any real preparations. All of these were simple jobs, and the pay reflected.


    However, he couldn¡¯t and wouldn¡¯t complain.


    Deckard¡¯s braincase, he made sure, was topped up with nutrient mix, and then placed in the stairwell that led down to the basement. The door that led to the stairs was actually inside the closet, leading to it being relatively well hidden against casual inspections.


    By the time he had completed everything, he barely had enough time to use the barely working sani-spray shower -which Georgie had gotten reconnected like he said he would- and then rush out to meet Ko.

 I Have a New Book Out!

    My new book is out today! It''s called WetWorks and is an Assassin type thriller.


    If you like John Wick, Nobody (Bob Odenkirk), and Mitch Rapp (American Assassin) then I really do believe you will enjoy this story.


    https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0DG64HJFC</a>


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 84.852%" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 49.9708%"></td>


    <td style="width: 49.9708%">


    Raised as a child soldier. Rescued as a teenager. Now an adult.


    Ripley ''Rip'' Lawrence has done the best he could to put his past behind him. Not an easy task when his body is riddled with the scars of the life he was once forced to live.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Now he is a simple construction worker on vacation with his girlfriend, Ashley. At least he was until she got kidnapped.


    Awakening a side of himself that is perhaps better left asleep, he must work with the businesses of the Underworld to track her down.


    Caught up in a web of intrigue tracing back to her family''s company and one of their R&D projects, he must do what he does best. Eliminate the opposition, from a distance, if possible, the shadows if not, and up close if there is no other choice.


    For, as he has been told by his guardian in the past, he is no covert operative. What Rip is instead, is a WetWork Operator.


    Even if his skills have gotten a little rusty since he was rescued ten years earlier.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>

 Chapter 36

    Trace was sitting across from Ko in an underground bar. The lights were a mix of neon and LEDs that were predominantly of varying purple hues. It wasn¡¯t his favorite color normally, but he thought Ko was a fan of it. She liked it enough to dye her hair a dark purple color, at least. That had to mean something.


    At the end of the table, attached to the wall, was a private screen that they had tuned to show the drop proceedings. Not that there was much to see at the moment. They had gotten there early to ensure they had a place to watch it, only to find the prices for private dining spaces cheaper than expected.


    ¡°Why do you think she does these drops?¡± Trace asked as they waited for their food to arrive. The screen currently showed the landing location, which was empty, and a few people talking back and forth. ¡°I mean, after everything people did to her, and her family, why is she still helping us even this much?¡±


    The drops weren¡¯t exactly super helpful in nature. At least that was the case if you listened to the people who wanted to control them all. Thankfully, this was one of the rare cases where the average person was smart enough to know the truth.


    The drops brought down titanium that the goddesses¡¯ robots had mined from asteroids. They also brought a supply of chips and other components for her companies, along with a small supply of vegetables that had been grown in space.


    The food was mostly negligible; it was a drop in the bucket of what they needed. The supply of titanium, though, was always useful. Mining it on Earth had become harder in recent years. It was an abundant metal, however, the easiest, and therefore most profitable, way to mine it was through pit mining.


    Even corporations had their limits with that particular method as they discovered how much land it took up and ruined. Land that could have been used for housing, or cultivation, or any number of other things.


    The push back against the mining corporations had been growing over the years and their power had continued to diminish.


    Ko shook her head, relaxing as she looked up at the lights. ¡°Who can say? Space is her domain. She doesn¡¯t allow anyone else to go up there anymore. We don¡¯t even know how much of the solar system she has explored at this point. Maybe she¡¯s even gone beyond it to the next one.¡± Her eyes flicked over to the screen. ¡°It¡¯s possible that she just doesn¡¯t care anymore. They say time heals all wounds. At this point, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised to learn that she thinks of us as nothing more than pets.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s going to be a real problem when he wakes up, if he wakes up, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°We already knew that.¡± She said just as their food was brought to them.


    It looked pretty good, considering it had been mostly spat out of a 3D food printer. The meat patties for their hamburgers were just seared meat paste. The lettuce and tomatoes were flavored and colored paste. He had never had the real items before, but he had to imagine the paste didn¡¯t do them justice. At least, the cheese and buns were nice.


    Overall, it was probably one of the better meals he¡¯d eaten in a long time. The company was nice as well.


    The fries were odd though; the outside was nice and crunchy while the pasty inside was mushy. Those he was not a fan of, the mouthfeel was all wrong for him.


    Together with the smoothie he had drunk earlier, this was probably the best he had ever eaten, period.


    He sat back with a groan a few minutes later in contented bliss. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve had something that good in a long time.¡±


    Ko nodded. ¡°That was indeed rather satisfying.¡±


    Over on the screen, a countdown had appeared for when they expected the drop to come into view. A few seconds later, a large block could be seen free-falling through the sky. Its speed continued to pick up, before suddenly slowing as large parachutes caught the air and began steering it toward the proper site.


    It took another couple of minutes for the process to complete, with it ending as the large block slid into place.


    It was the first time either of them had watched a drop in a while, and both were surprised at how little had changed. The local government and corporations all drove up as the ramp into it fell to the ground. Over the next couple of days, the entire thing would be stripped of its contents and then disassembled.


    It wasn¡¯t a rocket. Each of these drops was a one-way trip. The only authorized launch site on the planet was in the middle of the ocean and under Meredith¡¯s direct control.


    For a second Trace found himself holding his breath, half expecting something to happen.


    Nothing did, at least nothing anyone was aware of or could have perceived. Hopefully, that meant nothing had occurred at all.


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Breathing out, he relaxed and felt his shoulders slump. ¡°Well, I¡¯m tired, and have a bunch of jobs lined up for tomorrow. How about you?¡±


    She nodded. ¡°Yeah, what happened earlier took a lot out of me. I guess we didn¡¯t need to be so suspicious of the placement on this one. We were just seeing connections where there weren¡¯t any.¡±


    He nodded and stood.


    Together, they left the restaurant and bar behind.


    ***


    Back at the drop site, everyone missed seeing a large portion of the parachute disintegrating into a silvery puddle. The puddle of nanites quickly reformed into a small R/C-sized car that sped off towards the direction of Denver.


    ***


    Trace felt his body popping as he rolled out of bed.


    The notification that appeared in the corner of his vision confirmed that the nutrient shot he had taken before bed had done its job.


    - Skeletal System Repair (Percent Completed): 79%


    - Muscular System Repair (Percent Completed): 39%


    He couldn¡¯t say the pace had gone back to what it was originally, however, it had definitely gone up. For now, that was good enough. Getting his body back into a decent condition wasn¡¯t something that wasn¡¯t going to be done overnight. Even once it was done, he needed to start on upgrading it in various ways. Whether that was through the G.H.O.S.T. System or cyberware remained to be determined.


    He checked on Deckard and then grabbed his bags and guns. It was time to get busy.


    The first job of the day was a simple grab-and-dash from some gonk¡¯s apartment. The fellow hadn¡¯t paid someone and now they were going to be paying in items. He had a set amount he needed to reach that the slacker owed. Everything he took past that was purely extra credits in his pocket. The best part was the numbskull only owed a few hundred credits.


    Unless there was absolutely nothing in the apartment, it would be hard to not reach that amount. Even in his old apartment, you could have found that in just crappy tech, probably, maybe.


    The apartment was on the far side of the city, as he was lining the jobs up in a path that slowly brought him back home.


    A while later, he pulled the bill of his hat lower, and ran an S&R scan to check for people inside the apartment. When it came up empty, he sprang the old lock and pushed the door open. The apartment was so old that it didn¡¯t even have doors that slid into the walls.


    Trace took a moment to look around the inside of the apartment. There wasn¡¯t actually that much inside the place. That¡¯s not to say that it was empty, so much as tidy. Which was unusual in his experience. All the random crap that other people seemed to collect and just put wherever was missing.


    He had to say that he liked it. Without all the extra junk everywhere, all that was left were items that held some value.


    All he had to do now was find the ones that were worth the most, or the most useful to him. It made his life so much easier when things were all neat and tidy.


    He dropped the duffel bag on the floor and quickly began going from room to room, selecting items. None of them were items that he particularly found useful for himself. However, he could see arguments being made to keep a few of them for the apartment.


    Regardless, it only took a couple of minutes to fill the bag. By the time he was done, the value it contained was well over what he needed for the job.


    Outside in the truck, he separated a few items from the bag and marked them for the client. With that completed, he moved onto the next job.


    The next job just had him tracking down a vehicle and tagging it for another edger to follow as part of another job. He scheduled the stop for a time of day when the target would supposedly be home, as they worked, or at least were active at night.


    It was a quick stop, one that only took a few seconds. Long enough for him to get out of the truck, place the tracker and then get back in the truck.


    Each of the jobs was just as quick and easy to complete, and the money they paid out reflected that. These didn¡¯t even count as tier-one jobs. They were the basic of the basic, the sort of jobs that edgers who were just starting out cut their teeth on. But he needed his money, and his sticky fingers helped fill that void.


    After taking the time to drop everything and sell the rest, it was getting late in the day.


    As a result of his efforts, he now had enough money to start paying someone to begin work on the roof. It wasn¡¯t enough to finish the job. However, as long as he continued to provide the sheet metal, the amount of progress would be pretty good.


    Trace spent the rest of the night going through his enhanced teaching modules. He had been ignoring them the last couple of days, but now that things were settling back into a new sort of normal, he needed to resume learning everything that he could.


    ***


    Trace peered through the scope of his scout rifle. He was lying on a table on the ninth floor of a building that lined up with a nearby scav den. It was one that he had gotten the location of from the server files.


    He had been monitoring the location all morning, checking to see how much activity there was coming in and out of the building. He was ready this time, both for them, and for gathering loot. The truck sat parked down below, with both crates crammed into the back of the truck bed.


    After the scavs had attacked his old apartment while he wasn¡¯t there, he had decided he would need to strike back at them. There were things that needed to be done first though. Namely, the acquisition of some proper equipment. Which he now had, with the guns, armor, and most notably, the truck. He also needed to become more proficient at aiming and hitting his desired target.


    He wouldn¡¯t say that he was where he needed to be in that regard just yet. His constant practice had left him a better shot than the average scav. He knew that much for certain. Besides, he wouldn¡¯t be going in as a typical edger or reaper, but as a wraith in training.


    That meant silent kills whenever possible and remaining unseen for as long as possible. Confusion and fear would be his friends. Each of his guns, except the revolver and the shotgun barrel on the Maritech X5, had suppressors.


    Trace flicked his eyes over to thermal and looked through the scope on the rifle. One of the benefits of having a proper scope was still being able to access the abilities his eyes gave him. He increased the magnification, on first the scope, and then his eyes, dialing everything in until the inside of the apartment was in sharp focus.


    This place was a different style of operation than the one he had found himself in before. There was no server rack or hulking auged-out bruiser. There was a nice-looking desk computer in the corner that was putting out a fair-bit of heat. He also counted five different freezers in a room at the back.


    There were also more scavs moving about the place. They had two ¡®surgical¡¯ rooms, three ice-baths, and a minigun emplacement pointed at the elevator.


    Oh yeah, going in silent was definitely the right choice.

 Chapter 37

    Trace tapped his finger on the metal guard next to the trigger, thinking. The temptation to pop off a quick couple of shots right then was strong. It would serve to lower their numbers. However, it would also let them know someone was coming, and while he didn¡¯t plan on entering through the front, it would be a pointless risk.


    With a sigh, he turned off the thermal setting in his eyes and pulled back from the scope. This was fine. He could be patient enough to hit them in their den of nastiness.


    He folded the barrel down and strapped it to his courier bag.


    Back down in the truck, he placed it on the back seat, double-checked his equipment, and proceeded to drive it into position.


    He had seen earlier that the floor above the scavs was empty, so he took the elevator to that floor. For some reason, it seemed as though most people were uncomfortable living near the murderous scavengers. Not that he could blame them.


    However, it did make it easy to choose his point of entrance from among the many available options.


    He was going to start at the rearmost apartment and come in from the balcony like he had started to grow somewhat accustomed to doing. The scavs had been kind enough to knock all the walls down that would have separated the apartments. So, he was going to make full use of that.


    He would be coming in beside the office, which would give him a chance to unplug everything before they could remotely wipe anything. After that, it was just a matter of eliminating everyone as quietly as possible.


    Trace had prepared a hook on the end of one of his climbing ropes. As soon as he had suctioned his way down and into position, he was able to flip the rope enough that it came loose, and he was able to pull it down. There would be no leaving ropes behind again, not if he could help it anyway. It was a cheap piece of equipment. However, equipment could be traced, and that was not something a wraith or he wanted.


    Taking a steadying breath, he plugged into the button and used the system-breaching module to unlock the balcony¡¯s door. A moment later he was inside, and he closed it behind him to keep out the wind noise it had generated.


    The suppressed CD-10 was held at the ready in his hands as he did a quick S&R scan of the area. No one was coming his way. The door to the back office area where he had entered was closed. It must have kept the sudden burst of wind noise from being heard anywhere else on the floor.


    At least, that was his hope.


    He quickly moved over to the desk computer and shut everything down. There was no indication they had an information wipe procedure in place, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Besides, judging by how much heat it had been putting out earlier, it had certainly been doing something. He was more than happy to interrupt whatever it had been doing. Even if all that was included downloading the latest drek of a TV show, some moronic scav was into.


    Turning back to the door, Trace fell into a crouch as he ran another scan. His heart froze for a moment and then began beating triple time. While he had been dealing with the computer, one of the scavs had walked right on by the door and gone to the room with all the freezers. He had been so absorbed in his task that he hadn¡¯t even heard their footsteps. Either that or the muffling qualities of the door really were that good.


    Either way, he couldn¡¯t afford to be that oblivious while in this sort of environment. That would only lead to him getting killed, or worse, ending up on the scavs table while he was still alive.


    Regardless, this was the perfect opportunity to eliminate one of them while they were alone.


    Staying low, he gently opened the door and snuck up behind the scav that was putting freshly stolen cyberware pieces into the freezer.


    Trace stilled in the hallway and raised the gun. The targeting reticle appeared in the center of his vision as his finger touched the trigger. He took an extra split second to aim properly, not content to depend on just the reticle before pulling the trigger.


    The suppressor muffled the shot to the point that the only noise was the subtle release of gasses from the chamber.


    The bullet took the filthy scav in the back of his head and blew the front of his face out, dropping him instantly. Trace spun around and ran a quick S&R scan; he didn¡¯t want anyone coming up behind him. Seeing that there wasn¡¯t anyone, he holstered his gun for the moment and entered the room to hide the body. All he needed to do was ensure it stayed out of sight, just in case someone did get past him while he was on a different part of the floor.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    With the body stuffed into a corner, beneath some plastic he had found, he was free to continue. That was only one scav down among the many that were left on the floor. Just thinking about it made him wish for the day he could afford the sort of cyberware that would help him become a better wraith. Those days were far in the future. Affording the less awesome equipment was somewhat closer at hand. However, they were also less powerful, and overall, more limited. That didn¡¯t mean they weren¡¯t useful, just limited their capabilities.


    Sneaking through the floor, he was able to eliminate another scav without anyone knowing he was there. He shot the fellow through the bathroom door. Three quick shots to his chest and he was done. Two more were in the kitchen of the apartment with the office. It seemed as though they were using that apartment mostly for its intended purpose. While the rest of the floor was an absolute wreck as they turned everything into a charnel house.


    Unfortunately, those were the only easy targets he was destined to have. The rest of the scavs on the floor were all working in their surgery rooms or doing something else near the elevator.


    Trace made sure the clip of shotgun shells was loaded in the X5, and the selector switch on the proper barrel. He was going to keep moving and attacking as quietly as possible for as long as he could. Now that he was reaching an area where they were bunched up, he just wasn¡¯t expecting that to be much longer is all.


    The assault rifle was ready for when they learned of his presence, and the K-10 was for when they got in close.


    Trace took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a beat, let the breath out, and opened them. It was go time.


    He peeked into the nearest surgery room, the barrel of his gun leading the way. Each of the five scavs positions was already marked in his mind. There were too many.


    The first shot took the one who looked the least busy, while the second hit the throat of the person next to him. The third shot skimmed the shoulder of the scav, who had been tearing into the person on the table. Thankfully, at least in Trace¡¯s opinion, they were already dead.


    The man roared in pain, while the other two dove for cover. Trace put two more bullets in the scav, killing him and emptying his magazine. Swapping it out, he pocketed the empty and holstered the gun. It was time for the assault rifle to show them what it was made of.


    The model he was currently carrying didn¡¯t have any mods installed. It had the base reticle interface, along with the old-school iron sights, and nothing else. Each time he pulled the trigger, it could either fire off three-round bursts or do a full auto mode. He would have preferred a single-shot mode as well, but that would come later from modifications. At the moment, he was just testing out which of the assault rifles he actually liked.


    He had picked up a few of them from the scarpo town and none of them had mods. The information online had been pretty good for a few of them as well. After test-firing them, he hadn¡¯t been able to make up his mind. Which meant he had to actually use each of them first.


    He squeezed the trigger, feeling the three rounds burst out the end of the barrel in a flash of flame. It was fast, but there was something about it that annoyed him. He flicked the switch to auto and tapped the trigger to produce a single shot. It wasn¡¯t perfect, but it was less annoying. It also took far too much precision for him to do in the middle of a battle.


    Trace flung himself backward as the wall exploded with a hail of gunfire. His back hit the floor as he mentally tapped the S&R scan icon he had created for his HUD. The outlines of the scavs in the other room and beyond lit up in his eyes as he took aim and opened fire in full auto. Within seconds, the magazine for the assault rifle was empty. Flicking the gun to the side, he ejected the spent mag and slapped the spare he had stashed in his back pocket, home.


    He would pick it up later.


    Trace ran another scan, his hand going to the back of his neck as he felt his NetConnect starting to heat up. He needed to talk to Sevorah or Ko about a better cooling solution for the device. Using his body just wasn¡¯t cutting it if he wanted to seriously use any of the functions that came with the mil-spec eyes.


    The outlines he saw were all on the ground and still. However, he did see more were approaching from other directions. There were two entrances into that surgery room, not to mention that the hallway he was in also led deeper into the floor where the other scavs were.


    Rolling to his feet, he ran back the way he had come and found a good place to shoot from. He also took a moment to grab more magazines for the assault rifle from his bag. He¡¯d only had the one spare readily available before.


    Scavs weren¡¯t exactly known for their intelligence, which he was glad for, but that didn¡¯t mean they couldn¡¯t learn. Over the next few minutes, six scavs made appearances in the hallway, only to be gunned down with ease.


    Everything was going great, scavs were dying, he was healthy, all was right in the world.


    Then the fracking minigun showed up. The one that had been in front of the elevator, yeah, that minigun. One of the scavs had gotten smart and decided to use it to cut their way through all the walls separating them from Trace. This was a clear example of one of them learning, and to Trace¡¯s detriment.


    With the bullets flying overhead, all he could do was keep his head down until they stopped or the ceiling fell down on top of them. Whichever came first, really.


    For several long seconds, he listened to the gun roar, as it sent hundreds of bullets through every wall in the area. Finally, all that remained was an interminable whine as the barrels spun down along with the clatter of thousands of bullet casings as they hit the ground and bounced.


    Trace hesitated, barely daring to believe that he was still alive before uncovering his head and taking a look around. Everywhere he looked, there was devastation. The walls had been mulched to absolute powder, revealing the meticulous substrate beneath that gave it the tensile strength to hold everything up.


    There was one thing though, all the damage was several feet off the ground.


    Daring to look down the hallway, Trace barely resisted the urge to facepalm at what he saw.


    The scavs had grabbed the entire minigun emplacement, which included the base that held it in place for the shooter. A base that was currently axis-locked with a dummy pin.


    He took back what he had been thinking earlier, scavs couldn¡¯t learn, and he was perfectly alright with that.

 Chapter 38

    The assault rifle had made quick work of the remaining scavs on the floor, and he was left to pick up the pieces.


    Now that the place had been emptied of living scavs, he needed to start emptying it of all the loot. A quick trip down to his truck had both the large crates in the elevator and were waiting to be filled with goodies.


    The first two things he grabbed were the minigun and the computer desk. The computer he set to the side for the moment beside the elevator. It wouldn¡¯t fit in one of the crates, so it would go in last. The minigun, however, along with its stand, went into the bottom of the first crate. There was no more ammo for it, but just having it would be awesome.


    The rest of the items in the office went into the second crate.


    Once the room had been cleared of items he wanted, he began dragging bodies back into it. Just like usual, he grabbed everything of value from each one as he did so. Pockets were turned inside out, modules -if they had any- were taken, and crypto-vaults were emptied.


    All the guns and ammo were placed to the side for the moment, as he began to see an issue he thought he had left behind. There was too much loot to fit in just his two crates and the back of his truck.


    He was going to need another vehicle and more help if he wanted to recover all of these goodies.


    ¡®Are you busy? I need some help looting a scav den I just took out.¡¯ Trace asked in a quick message to Ko.


    While he was waiting for her to reply, he kept working at grabbing everything he wanted. He found more medical supplies and first aid kits, which he immediately grabbed. Most of what he was finding was stuff that he could sell but held no interest to him otherwise.


    The real value in doing this sort of job was eliminating one more group of scavs, while also getting a few useful items. Namely, the computer and the minigun. The rest of the guns he would look over, but he had seen how they took care of their equipment last time around. It was highly likely that most of them would get sold for cheap unless he managed to find one in decent condition.


    There were also all the cyberware parts in the back, which, as he had learned last time, weren¡¯t actually as valuable as he had been hoping.


    No, the money he would be getting from this job would be nice, but it wasn¡¯t the main reason he had done it. He had been after information, along with a bit of revenge.


    Ko and he sent messages back and forth several times before she agreed to show up with a large van.


    The contents of the freezers would be going in her van. If there was any room left over, then they would go from there.


    ***


    ¡°Ugh, if you are going to keep doing these sorts of jobs, then you need to hire someone or find somebody to work with you,¡± Ko complained once they had finished loading everything.


    Trace grunted. ¡°I don¡¯t see how that is possible. I don¡¯t know anyone.¡±


    ¡°Really? You must know other kids from your time growing up on the street, right?¡± She asked in disbelief.


    He shook his head. ¡°None that I¡¯ve kept in touch with. Most of the ones I was actually friends with died years ago or were merely acquaintances. Either way, those of us who survived those days did it in one of three ways. Joining one of the gangs, stabbing everyone around you in the back, or putting enough distance between you and the rest that they couldn¡¯t betray you. I chose option three. Stick-Point was the first person I had let close in over a year when he and I met.¡±


    ¡°Wow, we really need to socialize you more,¡± She told him with a frown.


    ¡°Like you¡¯re one to talk. How many friends do you have outside of Sevorah?¡± He shot back.


    ¡°I¡¯m friends with Anna!¡±


    ¡°Who?¡± He asked, not recognizing the name.


    ¡°She¡¯s the receptionist at the clinic!¡± Ko cried out in exasperation.


    ¡°Oh, I never learned her name before.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a placard with it written on her desk,¡± She growled, getting annoyed with him for real now.


    ¡°Uh, how about we take the truck back to my warehouse, and then go on to the clinic?¡± Trace asked, trying to change the subject.


    ¡°Fine! But don¡¯t think we¡¯re done talking about this subject for even a moment.¡±


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    He scurried into the cab of his truck and sighed with relief. Ko could be intense when she got worked up. Not that she was wrong in this case. Getting a partner of some sort would be nice. Paying them was the issue. Credits and trust he had found were almost always the two greatest problems in life.


    They dropped his truck off and continued on to the clinic in silence.


    ¡°Were you at least careful in how you eliminated the scavs? I saw the walls there, and a lot of them had suffered a ridiculous amount of damage.¡±


    ¡°I went in like a proper wraith for the most part, taking each one as silently as possible.¡± He told her. ¡°That worked for maybe a fourth of them, possibly a little less. I don¡¯t really remember.¡±


    She inhaled sharply as her hands gripped the wheel tight enough to turn them pale. ¡°Trace, you are not to attack another scav den like this again without backup. Is that clear?¡±


    He nodded readily. ¡°Got it, understood.¡±


    Ko began muttering under her breath, only stopping when they pulled up to the clinic. Sevorah and Anna were waiting outside to help them unload the van.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to put all of these toward the debt you owe me,¡± Sevorah said in a way of greeting.


    ¡°Oh, come on you too?¡±


    ¡°Ko already sent me a message about how stupid you were being. Maybe this will encourage you to make better choices in the future.¡±


    ¡°I had my reasons, and they weren¡¯t entirely based around the thought of money. I had the location for this place from last time, and I wanted to get information from them. Don¡¯t forget they tore apart my apartment while I was still recovering at Pushman¡¯s place. I need to know if they are actively looking for me still, and if so why. I stole their computer and all their data prisms. When I get back to my place, I¡¯ll ensure it isn¡¯t connected to anything and then start going through all the data.¡±


    ¡°At least that reason is better than no reason, but not by much,¡± Sevorah said after a moment. ¡°You¡¯re still not getting any money from these though.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine. As long as you get your money, I can live with it.¡± Trace tapped his neck. ¡°Is there a way to get better cooling for this thing, by any chance? When I use the functions from my eyes more than a few times in a row, it starts heating up something fierce.¡±


    She frowned. ¡°Have you tried using them without the NetConnect as a medium, by any chance?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it was knocked out by an EMP the other day.¡± He admitted. ¡°I was able to run a scan without them, but it felt like I had a fever afterward. My head was nice and toasty until my blood cooled it down.¡±


    ¡°That is both impressive and concerning. I admit, I was hoping you would be able to run them without any additional hardware to interface with them, which you have done. Even in a shutdown state, the NetConnect connects with the brain on a level few but the most skilled in the subject understand. The side-effects, however, are worrying. I¡¯ll look into the matter and get back to you as soon as I find something. In the meantime, don¡¯t cook either your NetConnect or your brain.¡±


    ¡°Gee, thanks, I¡¯ll try not to,¡± He replied glibly as they began unloading everything.


    The back of the van contained everything that Ko had thought might be useful to the clinic or that they would be able to sell. That obviously included the cyberware parts, but it also meant all the equipment from the surgery rooms. None of it was high end, or particularly useful for helping people. That said, it still had its place inside a clinic.


    When they finished, he left them to go through everything and started walking back to the warehouse. It would take him a bit, but he wanted the time to clear his mind. Ko was right. This job had been too dangerous for him to do alone. More than that, it was not something that he would have even normally thought about attempting, let alone actually doing.


    He knew that he was a little better shot with a gun than he used to be, and physically, he felt better than ever before. Yet, there was no reason to lose control like this. Taking out scav dens was typically done with teams of edgers, not by just one idiotic wannabe wraith.


    Whatever extra healing the nanites gave him would be hard-pressed to do anything if he had been cut in half by the minigun earlier.


    His mind was preoccupied with those thoughts and more, as he walked along. When he reached his warehouse, he found a team of gangster gonks attempting to break in by kicking it with their augmented legs. To be fair to them, that tactic would have worked if it had still had the same lock from when he started renting the place. There was a nice big bar in place there now. The rest of the door was getting bent around the bar, so the odds were good that they would have gotten in eventually.


    Trace had never gotten to use the Maritech X5 and its shotgun barrel. So, he unholstered it, took a broad sort of aim, and pulled the trigger. The shell ejected out the side as the clip slid a new one into place. The air was filled with the noise of his first shot when he brought the gun back into position and shot them again.


    The first blast of buckshot caught them completely unaware, but were only lightly damaged for the most part. The 28-gauge shells the gun used just weren¡¯t big enough to do more damage at any sort of range. The spread of the buckshot from the short barrel became too ridiculous.


    Now that he knew that, Trace took a few steps forward and blasted them with the third shell. At a distance of around ten feet, the damage it caused was much more impressive. But it also lost its crowd control abilities. It was still a sweet gun, but possibly not as impressive as he had first thought it was.


    Thumbing the switch, he put it into standard firing mode and began firing regular bullets at them. Where a couple of the gangsters had been stunned by the suddenness of his attack, most had dived out of the way.


    That meant the three shotgun shells injured a couple of them but only actually killed two.


    After that, it became a regular good old gunfight.


    ¡°Why are you trying to break into my warehouse?¡± He screamed at them as he ducked behind the rusted remains of a vehicle that had been taken down to its bare metal years before.


    ¡°Haha, we saw you come in with some good stuff,¡± One of them cackled madly.


    What could they have even seen? Everything was in crates outside of the desk computer.


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t aware there was a gang in this area.¡± Trace swapped out guns for the Kenyobi that normally sat where the Maritech had been. The optical scope on it was special and directly linked with his eyes. Instead of merely giving him a reticle, it provided an image, like a real scope would.


    It was an uncommon feature for such a small scope and would allow him to look around corners in this instance.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe I am having this much difficulty with common street thugs!¡± He muttered to himself as he got back into position. ¡°What was I thinking hitting a scav den by myself?¡±

 Chapter 39

    The battle outside the warehouse had shown Trace just how much he had been overestimating himself. He had gotten lucky with the scav den he hit, only a little bit of it was his actual skill. Though that had played a part as well, just not as much as it should have.


    When he was able to close the warehouse doors behind him after looting all the bodies, the sigh of relief he let out was all-encompassing.


    He had gotten caught up in the feeling of his increasingly healed body and the idea of relatively easy money. There had been many reasons, but the end result was him stupidly letting his mind run away from him.


    It was something he would need to be more careful of in the future. After being poor his entire life, the thought of finally having some money had been a little too much for him.


    It was a weakness he hadn¡¯t even realized he had until that moment.


    Trace maintained his introspective mood as he unloaded the desk computer and hauled it into the apartment. He pushed it into position next to the wall near his bed and slipped a chair in front of it.


    Once that was in position, he set up the shelves that had been in the office when he moved in. Those went into the far corner where they would be out of the way for the moment. There were more shelves that he could and would set up outside the apartment near the tables.


    For the moment, the shelves in the apartment held all the data prisms that he had already gone through. The items that he wasn¡¯t sure what to do with just yet. Like the server-rack from the scavs, all the information was useful. But he could sell that off and be done with it. Then he would be left with a server-rack of data prisms, with no computer unit.


    However, just having that rack was useful, as it would allow him to back up all his data. Assuming he ever had that much data. Now that he had a proper desk computer, it was time to expand on what he had been training for in the enhanced teaching modules. He could begin doing some programming if he wanted to, which he mostly didn¡¯t. Or of more interest, he could begin creating schematics for all the tech he liked to play around with.


    There was a lot he could use the computer for, and he was still learning in so many ways.


    For the moment, Trace decided to leave the crates in the back of the truck and fetched Deckard¡¯s braincase from the stairwell. He checked the level of the nutrient mix and frowned when he saw that it was practically empty. He could have sworn he had made sure to top him off before he left that morning.


    Something was going on here, and he wanted to know what. Trace knew that Ko had tweaked his nutrient mix formula, but that shouldn¡¯t be enough to suddenly make what should have been a multi-week supply vanish in a single day. Even if Deckard¡¯s braincase had never treated the nutrient mix amount like it was supposed to.


    He mentally tapped on the notification window for the nanites.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on with Deckard? Has his braincase suddenly sprung a leak?¡±


    - Negative


    - Sub-User Devko Park¡¯s alterations to the nutrient formula provided the needed ingredients to repair the last of the damage to Deckard¡¯s brain


    - Deckard is now in the process of waking up


    - He will be fully awake and aware in approximately sixteen hours


    Trace fell back into his bed in surprise. This was a good thing. Ever since he had found the braincase, this was what he had been keeping it safe for. Yet, it all felt anti-climactic for some reason.


    Thinking about it some more, he realized what the problem was. He had been thinking about Deckard¡¯s waking as the ending, instead of the beginning it was more likely to be. They hadn¡¯t approached how to contact Meredith, or if she would even believe them when they told her Deckard was alive. There were countless obstacles, and a part of his mind had known that, leading to the unsettled feeling.


    Sure, there were probably answers to many of those questions, but he certainly didn¡¯t know them. For now, all he could do was make sure Deckard was safe until he finished waking up. And hopefully, when he did, he would have his memories along for the ride, otherwise, they might have more problems than they thought.


    Trace eventually placed the braincase on the desk and sent a message to Ko. ¡®Congratulations, your new nutrient mix formula worked. He¡¯s starting to wake up. We have 16 hours to get items ready for him to see and hear so he isn¡¯t stuck in a box.¡¯


    He promptly fell back onto his bed and was asleep before she had the chance to respond.


    ***


    A rather insistent call from Ko woke Trace the next morning. ¡°Hello?¡± He mumbled.


    ¡°HELLO?¡± She screeched. ¡°You can¡¯t just dump that sort of thing on me and then not respond to my messages.¡±


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    His eyes flicked through his HUD, pulling up his messages as he scrolled through all the ones she had left him during the night. ¡°Sorry, I passed out right sending that one to you. Did you even get any sleep? These kept coming all night long.¡±


    Ko screamed, a sound that he heard from just outside the warehouse, as well as on the call.


    ¡°You¡¯re here right now, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes I am, and I can¡¯t get in because your stupid door is bent five different ways at the moment.¡± Stick-Point, Sevorah, and Ko each had digital keys to the door of the warehouse. Of course, they only worked if that particular door was in working order.


    ¡°Right, give me a moment and I¡¯ll open the main warehouse doors for you.¡±


    A few minutes later, a very irate and frazzled-looking Ko was standing inside his apartment with a box full of supplies. It turned out that Sevorah had everything they needed for Deckard. Apparently, she hadn¡¯t wanted to know what they were up to, only telling Ko to be safe with whatever it was.


    The kit she had brought could either be used as a whole, or as pieces. In this case, they went for the whole thing, as it promised the best experience for Deckard.


    The braincase would sit on top of another unit that was responsible for driving all the other pieces. The unit itself had several cameras, microphones, and speakers that were all interchangeable depending on the needs and wants of the user. There was even a small display that covered the front area where an avatar or face could be displayed.


    The setup was actually about ten years old, but Sevorah had rarely had a need or chance to use it.


    After making sure everything was plugged in correctly, the two sat back and waited.


    ¡°What do you think are the odds that he still has his memories after all this time?¡± Trace asked Ko softly.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, first there was the initial damage that caused him to go into the coma in the first place. Then there is the damage caused by having your mind used as a computer for years on end. And let¡¯s not forget any issues that being in a coma for over a hundred years might have caused.¡± Her head sank lower as she listed each item. ¡°Honestly, if he can even form a coherent sentence, I would call it a win for him.¡±


    ¡°Assuming he can¡¯t, then what are we going to do with him? I¡¯m not good enough to build him a body, and I certainly haven¡¯t seen those sorts of parts at the junkyard.¡±


    She shook her head. ¡°I don¡¯t know. That¡¯s a problem we¡¯ll think about when we have to, I think. For now, let¡¯s just hope this doesn¡¯t bring any more problems with it.¡±


    Trace cocked his head as he heard a soft whirring noise coming from inside the warehouse. Opening the door, he saw a small off-road car that came up to the middle of his shin approaching the apartment door where he was standing.


    ¡°How did that even get inside?¡± Ko asked, peering over his shoulder.


    ¡°I have absolutely no idea. Maybe there is a hole I haven¡¯t found yet.¡±


    The car came to a stop in front of them and began to ripple as its form turned to liquid in began to grow.


    ¡°Oh, frack me,¡± Trace muttered, understanding dawning in both his and Ko¡¯s minds at the same time.


    The nanites that had created the car were enough to create a woman a little over four-feet tall. The overall density of her body was perhaps a tad questionable, but any more would have been really pushing it.


    ¡°Steel goddess Meredith,¡± Ko breathed, her voice sounding strangled even to her own ears.


    ¡°It has been some time since the last time I visited the surface of Earth. I thought my time with this planet was more or less done. Imagine my surprise when I began receiving information updates from my son¡¯s braincase once more after all this time.¡± The diminutive woman brushed past them to enter the apartment. ¡°You did well with the nutrient mix. Without that, it would have taken him another two months to awaken.¡±


    Trace kept Ko behind him as he struggled to understand what was going on. ¡°What are you talking about? What information updates? He isn¡¯t connected to the net.¡±


    ¡°No, he isn¡¯t, but you are, and you are connected to him.¡±


    He groaned and palmed his face. ¡°The nanites¡­ Of course, they also created a network bridge that could be accessed in an emergency. That explains a few things.¡±


    ¡°Wait, if you knew where he was all this time, why did it take you so long to come down, and why in this form?¡± Ko demanded, pushing Trace to the side. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±


    Meredith smiled warmly as she touched her son¡¯s braincase. ¡°Over the years, my mind has become somewhat fragmented. Losing Deckard was the final straw to what was already a somewhat tenuous hold on reality. At the moment, I am but one of several personalities playing host at any given time.¡±


    ¡°So, what happened to the real Meredith?¡± Trace asked.


    ¡°We are all the real Meredith.¡± She corrected him. ¡°However, if you mean the original personality. Then, I can¡¯t say for sure. None of us has seen or heard from her in over a hundred years. Since then, we have each been running different parts of Koarden enterprises.¡±


    ¡°And if I¡¯m guessing, only you believed that the information updates on Deckard were real. Which meant that you had to work around all the other personalities.¡±


    She nodded at Trace¡¯s conjecture. ¡°Although, saying I believed them to be real is a bit much. Hoped perhaps, as well as needed to see the truth if there was something else going on.¡±


    ¡°So, what now? You take him into space with you?¡± Ko wondered as she approached the mini-sized mother.


    ¡°No, it wouldn¡¯t be safe for him up there. Not with my mind in its current state. I only came down here to check and see if it was really him. Now that I know it is, I¡¯ll start working to rehabilitate myself. Perhaps he can even help. Regardless, it won¡¯t be something that will be accomplished overnight.¡± A look of longing appeared in her eyes as she continued to touch the braincase. ¡°No, I must ask that you two watch over, and do what you can to take care of him.¡±


    She turned to face them. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, what I¡¯m asking you to do doesn¡¯t come without its own benefits.¡± Meredith quickly stepped forward and gripped both of them by the wrist. ¡°Consider this an improvement and update to the G.H.O.S.T. System you have already received. That version was incomplete, in many ways.


    ¡°It¡¯s a good thing neither of you tried to do anything other than receive knowledge updates. The results could have been interesting. It¡¯s hard to say for sure. Who knows what the nanites got up to while Deckard was in his coma? Either way, this version you will find doesn¡¯t have those flaws and has been significantly more optimized.¡±


    The nanites that made up her body began to sink into their skin, causing her to grow smaller by the second.


    ¡°I¡¯ll keep the personalities that believe he is a fake from attacking you three. Just concentrate on getting him a body and taking care of him.¡± A second later, she was gone.


    ¡°If you really wanted us to take care of him, you could have given us some credits,¡± Trace groused, rubbing his wrist.


    Beside him, Ko nodded, her eyes now locked on the braincase that had suddenly and unequivocally become their responsibility.

 Divergence Five

    In 1935, two military projects began development with some of the greatest minds known to man at the time. One was called the Manhattan Project, and the other was known as Project Hierophant. The lead members of Project Hierophant were Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, and Howard Hughes, among many others. Robert Oppenheimer assisted with the development of the power source during key phases when he could be spared from the Manhattan project.


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    Hierophant was the next leap forward in not only warfare but eventually humanity itself. The first model they created was an ungainly monstrosity, that was slow and exceedingly heavy. Every step it took would cause the earth to tremble. It was sufficient to strike fear in many of their enemy¡¯s hearts, but little more.


    Refinement of the mechanical Hierophant giant would need to be completed over the next several years.

 Chapter 40

    Ko abruptly smacked Trace on the arm. ¡°You gave me something that could have turned me into a pile of goo!¡±


    ¡°Hey, it wasn¡¯t like I was supposed to know that?¡± He protested, rubbing his arm. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, okay? Next time I won¡¯t offer to include you in something potentially life-changing.¡±


    She growled at him and turned away in a huff.


    He rolled his eyes and looked at the notifications that had appeared in the corner of his vision.


    - G.H.O.S.T. System has been updated from Version 0.1 to Version 0.3


    - User Trace Delevey¡¯s account has been elevated to Local Administrator status


    - Sub-User Devko Park¡¯s account has been elevated to that of a Regular User. No further updates concerning her account will be provided


    ¡­


    - Local Admin Trace has experienced a sudden influx of atomites


    - Current number of atomites is enough to perform the Overload function twice


    Trace read through all the different messages, not understanding most of what had been written. Then he came to the end, and while he understood the words, it took him an uncomfortably long time to figure out where the atomites had actually come from.


    ¡°Meredith¡¯s body just now, it wasn¡¯t made up of nan-¡± He stopped himself at the moment. There was no telling if it was safe to say the word now, simply because one of the personalities knew about them. ¡°The little things. It was made up of the even smaller atom things.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what I was thinking, yeah,¡± She said softly. ¡°Have you looked at the system menu yet?¡±


    ¡°No, why?¡± He pulled up the system menu and immediately saw the same changes she was seeing.


    As a full user, Ko would now have access to the same menu he¡¯d been using from the very beginning. However, as part of the updates to the system, the various selections now also listed the required materials to construct the most useful special nanites for the required job. You could either choose to build an absolutely ridiculous number of them and do the job. Or do it using the right materials and a fifth or less of the special nanites. At the top of the menu was a timer that marked how long they had left before they could use another knowledge update.


    The options themselves all looked to remain the same at first glance. Which begged the question, at least in Trace¡¯s mind, what was the purpose of being a local administrator? It was something he would have to dig into later when he was alone.


    ¡°What are you going to use your Overloads on?¡± She asked a while later as they were still waiting for Deckard to finish waking up.


    ¡°I¡¯m not entirely sure,¡± He replied. ¡°I know it will be something brain-related though, for sure. I don¡¯t really want to waste it on upgrading my body when, in all likelihood, I will eventually get more cyberware in the future. No, I¡¯m using it on my brain for sure. The only issue is, we don¡¯t know how broad the selection will be.¡±


    ¡°Ah, I get what you¡¯re saying. Like, can you just upgrade your mental acuity or are you simply doing the entire brain in one go?¡±


    He nodded. ¡°Exactly. Like, I wouldn¡¯t mind increasing my reaction speed, and how fast I think. Some would say those are two different things, others would say they¡¯re the same thing, and then there is the third camp where they¡¯re different but related. So, if I upgrade one, I get some benefits to the other. That way, nothing ever goes too far in one direction.¡±


    ¡°If I was designing the system, the third option would be my choice.¡±


    ¡°Mine as well, but that uses more resources.¡± He pointed out.


    She bobbed her head from side to side. ¡°That¡¯s true, but while we only have two uses each, a whole lot of the stuff entered us. Even accounting for some loss since it was also transferring information, I think there is a safety margin built in to accommodate for number three.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, well, I guess one of us will find out later. Right now we have to deal with this.¡± He pointed to the braincase and the screen they had needed to straighten after Meredith had pushed it aside earlier.


    The screen, which had been dark up till then, was finally showing signs of life.


    A sleeping pair of eyes appeared first, taking up much of the screen. After a minute, they began to pull back as a face came into view.


    It was a young face that didn¡¯t match what they knew about Deckard in the slightest. He had been over nineteen years old when the attack that put him in the coma happened. Yet, the face on the screen was closer to sixteen, maybe seventeen, if they were pushing it.


    This was the spark that Deckard had created when he was ten years old, and he had originally been loathe to update it all. His mother had forced him to, so people weren¡¯t talking to a child in business meetings. He hadn¡¯t updated it again before the attack. None of this was known to Trace or Ko, of course.


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    The boy¡¯s nose twitched a few times as he rolled over and stretched, before falling into a sitting position facing them. He yawned and rubbed his eyes before looking around the room. The various cameras attached to the case swiveled and spun around as they took everything in.


    The young-looking Deckard closed his eyes in concentration for a minute before refocusing on them with renewed focus. ¡°I¡¯ve been in a coma for almost one hundred and thirty years.¡±


    Trace let out a breath, he had only vaguely been aware he was holding. ¡°Yeah, it seems so. How are you feeling?¡±


    ¡°Muddled.¡± He blinked and looked away. ¡°I¡¯m having a hard time focusing at the moment, and my thoughts keep trying to escape my grasp. What happened? Where is my mother?¡±


    ¡°What happened is you were shot in the head and put in an extremely extended coma,¡± Ko told him. ¡°Whatever they hit you with back then breached the containment on your braincase. The only reason you¡¯re still alive is because of your nanites. You still suffered damage from it though that they needed to repair. Then, at some point, someone decided it was a good idea to use you as the main CPU for a server. I¡¯m sure I don¡¯t need to tell you what having that sort of data constantly pumped through a brain does to a person.¡±


    Deckard¡¯s avatar paled on the screen.


    ¡°We weren¡¯t sure if you would even still have any memories of who you were when you woke up,¡± Trace told him. ¡°You do actually remember who you are, right?¡±


    ¡°I think so. Some things are fragmented, and it¡¯s hard to think right now, but I know my name and I can remember my mother.¡± The cameras panned around the apartment again. ¡°Where is she? The attack couldn¡¯t have killed her. Where am I?¡±


    ¡°Okay, first off you need to calm down, and second, your mother is still alive. Or at least as alive as she was back when you knew her.¡± Trace ran a hand through his hair. ¡°She was even here a short while ago, but her mental state suffered a bit when she thought she lost you. It seems like you were what was keeping her grounded and stable, and once she thought you were gone, her mind fragmented.¡±


    He and Ko spent the next while talking to Deckard, running through topics as they came up. The duo found themselves needing to repeat certain things more often as time went on and eventually called a halt to the discussion.


    Ko refilled Deckard¡¯s nutrient mix and told him to get some rest. He wasn¡¯t used to being so mentally active anymore, just talking to people would be draining for him until he got used to it again.


    ¡°Are you going to stick around or¡­¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind staying, but Sevorah has been messaging me for the last half-hour already. I should really get going.¡± She admitted.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll give you a ride over to the clinic, then. I need to head over to the junkyard and get some more metal, anyway.¡±


    ¡°And a new door.¡± She reminded him.


    ¡°Yeah, one of those as well.¡±


    ***


    Trace was looking through the Overload menu as he picked his way through the rubbish at the junkyard. There were a lot of options, many of which he had already decided weren¡¯t for him as they affected different parts of the body. Maybe in the future, if he suddenly had an extreme number of the atomites, he would change his mind. For now though, he was fine with the decision he had made, even if it was currently unrealistic.


    What he was finding was that each upgrade cost a different number of the precious atomites. Which, in his opinion, lent more credence to the third option of the upgrade path he had been discussing with Ko before.


    Pretty much all of his body upgrades cost one unit at the moment. The two exceptions to that were his neck and eyes, where he had cyberware. Those locations cost one and a half units. There was a message stating that the increased cost was to cover the process of renewing and improving nerve connections between organic and inorganic matter.


    Then there was his brain, the area he had been wanting to upgrade. That was pretty much a strict no-go at the moment, as the cheapest upgrade there started at fifteen units, and rapidly climbed into the stratosphere.


    Atomites were useful, but it seemed as though they were mainly collectors¡¯ items for now. In the future, when he had the resources to make more, it would be a different matter.


    Regardless, Trace decided to use the Overload upgrade on his eyes when he got back to the apartment. He wanted to see what effect having a better nerve connection with them would bring, if any.


    As soon as the back of the truck was loaded down with metal, he took off. He had chosen smaller pieces this time around, so he could load them himself. Normally, he didn¡¯t mind helping the others, but he had other things on his mind and didn¡¯t want to spend too much extra time there if he could help it.


    When he reached the warehouse, he found that a gang tag had been drawn on the twisted door. The gang was trying to send him a message; that the warehouse, his home, belonged to them. That was going to be a problem, and it could have been a problem that morning when Ko had been left outside for who knows how long.


    He would need to confront them at some point, but not that day. He needed to finish getting the warehouse in order first. That included getting the door fixed. He wouldn¡¯t risk Ko¡¯s life by letting her be stuck outside and unable to get in again.


    As soon as he parked the truck, he called the fellow who had helped him install the bars across the door.


    ¡°Hey, Flash-Fry, you up for some more work?¡± He was a welder, that moonlit as an edger on occasion.


    ¡°Man, I told you last time. Just call me by my name when I¡¯m not on a job. It¡¯s Monroe!¡± The deep bass of the man¡¯s voice came back. Over the call, it was impressively deep. In person, you could feel his voice in your bones. ¡°I¡¯m just finishing up a job. You ready for me to get started on that roof of yours?¡±


    ¡°Partially, I just picked up some more metal today, but I don¡¯t know how much you actually need. But no, I¡¯m calling to get your help with that door you helped me put that bar on. A gang moved into the area it seems and tried to kick it in. Now I have a metallic pretzel with a gang tag on it that won¡¯t open.¡±


    Monroe whistled. ¡°I¡¯ll be over in just a few. Just make sure there aren¡¯t any gangsters in the area, would you? I don¡¯t feel like getting shot at today.¡±


    Trace snorted. ¡°Will do. I¡¯ll see you in a bit.¡±


    He went inside the apartment to grab his scout rifle and courier bag, taking a second to check on Deckard while he was at it. The young man¡­ -brain?- was still asleep from his earlier exertions.

 Chapter 41

    Trace climbed to the roof of the warehouse and found a spot where he was mostly hidden from any prying eyes. Laying down up there, he had a fairly decent view of the road and the surroundings. He should have gone up there and looked around a while ago.


    It was certainly easier to spot the various gang tags from up there than it was from down below.


    Regardless, he brought the stock of the scout rifle up to his shoulder and looked through the scope. There were a few people on the street. No one nearby that looked like they were going to cause any problems though.


    He shifted his attention to the roofs closest to his warehouse. Now they were talking. Two of them had gangsters stationed on them. They were probably supposed to be patrolling the roof they were on. Instead,both groups had brought up large parasols for shade and were mindlessly watching something on a screen he couldn¡¯t see.


    Decisions, decisions. Did he eliminate the idiots now, or later? They were obviously meant to be watching him, and as long as he was quick about it, the suppressor on the scout rifle would keep him from getting noticed.


    Then again, the next group they sent would be more attentive. Which was the better choice, causing harm to them now, while it was easy, or waiting for when they inevitably attacked the warehouse again?


    Trace shrugged, framed like that. It actually made the choice rather easy to make. He wasn¡¯t going to risk letting them hurt Monroe, and he was all for easy.


    He zeroed in on the farthest roof. There were two of them relaxing on that particular roof. Both of them appeared to be drinking something. Unfortunately, the scope wasn¡¯t quite good enough for him to make out the label.


    Trace adjusted his aim for the slight distance and pulled the trigger. As soon as the rifle finished ejecting the spent round, he squeezed the trigger a second time, his aim already adjusted for the next man. The first round punched through the mask the gangster had left dangling around his throat. The second round took the other man square in the upper chest, knocking him back out of his chair.


    He clicked his tongue in annoyance. It wasn¡¯t a killing shot. The man had been wearing armor. It had ruined his shirt that displayed the gang¡¯s colors, which was almost as good. He fired again, finishing the job this time.


    The people on the next roof were none the wiser and remained completely oblivious to what he had just done.


    A minute later, the second roof had been cleared as well.


    Trace massaged the back of his neck. Ever since he had gotten his new NetConnect installed, his neck had been giving him problems. The new model was just a little heavier and larger than the other one he¡¯d carried around for so long. It was a constant source of irritation in the back of his mind. One that had slowly started to grow more annoying, even as the stiffness of his neck ebbed and flowed with the day.


    He knew what it was a sign of, and yet, he refused to believe he was that weak! This was nothing more than some momentary anger issues as he adjusted to the new hardware. Nothing more. He was not going to lose his mind because he had swapped out his NetConnect.


    That was almost as lame as going psycho because you had your kidney replaced.


    He just needed to have Sevorah crack his neck for him again, and then he would be fine. Next time he saw her, he¡¯d ask her to do exactly that, in fact.


    Trace maintained his position on the roof until Monroe arrived with his work van. It had been some ancient piece of junk the man had brought back to life. It had more room than most trucks, and since it was all enclosed in thick metal, his tools were safe to be kept inside. It was practically a mobile fortress that ate electricity just to move, but the man seemed to love it.


    He whistled down to him and waved as he took one last look around and hurried to climb down.


    ¡°You weren¡¯t joking about the door,¡± Monroe said in way of greeting when he slipped out of the now-open warehouse doors. ¡°I can either heat it up and bash it back into shape, and put some reinforcing metal on it, along with more bars. Or we can just replace it, and still do more bars on the doorframe.¡±


    Trace pointed his thumb into the warehouse. ¡°Well, I did manage to find a door at the junkyard, but its condition is a bit suspect. If you want to take a look at it, I¡¯ll go along with whatever you decide.¡±


    Monroe edged past him, his towering height blocking out the light for a second. The man was a block of solid chocolate muscle that stood at six foot nine inches tall. His thighs were as large as Trace¡¯s head, and the muscles on his remaining fleshware arm weren¡¯t much smaller. He had lost the other one in an accident when he was younger. Monroe didn¡¯t go into more details than that, and Trace didn¡¯t pry. His cyberware arm was a beefy thing that he had seen crush metal before.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    With one hand, he ripped the solid metal door from the back of Trace¡¯s truck and let it fall to the ground with a clang.


    They both coughed and waved away the resulting mixed cloud of dust and rust particles.


    The large man bent over and began inspecting the door Trace had found at the junkyard.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to be honest with you. As bent as the other one is, I think it¡¯s still in better shape than this one.¡± He rumbled.


    Trace chuckled, running his hand through his hair a few times to dislodge everything. ¡°Yeah, I had a feeling that would be the case. Come on, I¡¯ll help you haul some of the metal I got over to the door.¡±


    It took a couple of minutes for Monroe to muscle the door off its frame and onto the ground. Being able to access it from both sides really helped in that regard. Once it was off the frame though, he was free to begin heating sections of it up and pounding it back into shape. After that was completed, and the door was lying flat once more, he began welding strips of thick metal to reinforce it.


    He did it that way for two reasons. Strips meant he was able to get a better overall bond to the door, versus what he would have gotten with one large piece. It also meant better heat dissipation, again it probably wouldn¡¯t have been an issue with the larger piece, but the strips were a better structural choice. If he didn¡¯t give the heat a chance to dissipate, then the door would end up warping.


    The entire process took a little longer than two and a half hours.


    When he was done, they were able to put it back in the frame -he did most of the lifting; it was extremely heavy by that point- and then two more locking bars were added to it. One closer to the top, and one nearer to the floor. There would be no bending this door.


    Monroe even took a moment to strengthen the hinges, ensuring that those wouldn¡¯t be the next weak point.


    Once the door was completed, they moved his van inside the warehouse and closed the doors behind them.


    ¡°Hey, do you think you could weld the light bar back onto the top of my truck for me?¡± Trace asked the man, as they were removing the last pieces of metal. Monroe had decided it was too heavy for the roof, but he was willing to take it off Trace¡¯s hands as part of his payment.


    He climbed into the truck bed and looked down at the top of the cab with a raised brow. ¡°What¡¯d you hit?¡±


    ¡°The roof of the parking structure,¡± He said quietly.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. What was that?¡± Monroe asked, holding his hand up to his ear. ¡°It sounded like you said the roof of a parking structure.¡±


    ¡°I did, okay! Have you seen how tall this thing is? I almost ran over someone¡¯s grandma earlier. I need to get a modular lift kit installed soon.¡± Trace complained.


    The man chuckled as he hopped down. ¡°It doesn¡¯t really seem like your style.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s pre-owned,¡± Trace told him with a grin. ¡°So, can you fix it?¡±


    ¡°Pre-owned?¡± It took a second for him to understand and he began roaring with laughter anew. ¡°You gotta be careful with something like this in case the oinker force ever stops you. They always need the tax money for something, fragging shizz if I know what for though. It never seems to do us any good.¡± He shook his head, suddenly tired. ¡°Yeah, I can fix it, and I know a guy who can help you get the lift kit sorted out as well. You¡¯re on your own for the papers.¡±


    ¡°I got that covered already. This is mine, as far as anybody is concerned.¡±


    Monroe took in Trace with renewed interest. ¡°Huh. Is that, um, something you might be able to accomplish again?¡±


    ¡°Maybe, if I had the right items. It wouldn¡¯t be cheap though.¡±


    ¡°How expensive are we talking?¡± Monroe refused to look him in the eye as he lightly scratched at his chin.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on, big guy? You have your eye set on someone else¡¯s rig or what?¡±


    Monroe sat on the end of the truck bed and sighed. ¡°You know I love Black Betty over there, but a while back, I got a tip about a new vehicle I could grab. This one is some sort of extra-extended cab semi. It¡¯s like a home on wheels that could also haul a trailer full of equipment.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like a full-on bomb of a ride. What¡¯s the problem?¡±


    ¡°Until I can claim it, I haven¡¯t dared approach it. Otherwise, it¡¯ll just get stolen as soon as I enter the city, and there is no way I¡¯d risk fixing it, only to leave it somewhere nearby. If you can fix the matter of ownership for me though¡­¡± He let the sentence dangle, knowing what he was asking the other man to do for him.


    Trace thought it over. He and Monroe didn¡¯t know each other that well. They had only met the other week, in fact, but Revlock had vouched for the man. That spoke well of him in his opinion. There was another matter to consider, the one Ko had brought up to him. He needed help, a partner of some kind, and if said person happened to be able to lift extremely heavy objects and drive something that could haul a trailer, then so much the better, in his opinion.


    Now he just needed to ask him, preferably in a way that wouldn¡¯t scare him off.


    ¡°I have a proposition for you,¡± Trace began slowly. ¡°But before I get to that. Where exactly is this truck and what happened to the original owner?¡±


    ¡°Hehe, yeah, about that. Have you ever been to the badlands?¡±


    ¡°The badlands? This thing is somewhere in Wyoming? Are you out of your fracking MIND?¡± Trace shouted at him. ¡°Do you know what sort of people travel through the badlands? Suicidal morons, people with extremely bad acne, and raiders! Even the gypsies avoid the place.¡±


    There was something about the constant threat of sandy sixty-mile-an-hour winds, with gusts of up to one hundred and forty that turned people away. At those sorts of speeds, even the regular wind was enough to strip the paint from a vehicle. If you stepped outside at the wrong time, your flesh was going to be saying goodbye to your bones.


    It was a terrifying place for anyone with some sense.


    ¡°It¡¯s not too far inside the badlands, just a dozen miles or so.¡±


    A dozen miles of potentially flesh-stripping winds, just to reach a vehicle that they would then need to fix.


    ¡°Oof,¡± Trace sank to the ground. ¡°I don¡¯t know, man. That¡¯s a lot to ask. I¡¯ll need to think about it. All my life I¡¯ve heard stories about that place, and I¡¯ve never had the desire to visit it.¡± He shook his head. ¡°I¡¯ll think about it and let you know, but wow, you really had to choose a doozy of a place.¡±

 Chapter 42

    Trace left Monroe working on the roof of the warehouse while he left for Pushman¡¯s place. He was going to grab a bunch of the modules the man had for the moment. Since the fellow himself was in no shape to enjoy them, he was going to swap out his ¡®Enhanced Intermediate Electrical Engineering¡¯ for something new. He might swap out his ¡®Enhanced Swords & Not Dying¡¯ as well, since he kept avoiding it.


    He just didn¡¯t really want to carry around a sword at the moment. There were plenty of edgers that thought they were cool, but he wasn¡¯t one of them. He could admit they had their place, especially the newer models with the vibro-blades or the plasma swords. Both of those could pretty much cut through anything. However, they also came in knife form, which he had found he liked better.


    It was more practical, and the smaller blades fit his current physique and style better.


    He left the truck parked outside the apartment building, where he wouldn¡¯t knock the light bar off again. It was a quick trip up and back down.


    A short time later, he was pulling the truck into the shop Monroe had told him about. It was the place where he could get the lift swapped out.


    Trace sat in the waiting area, staring at the G.H.O.S.T. System menu. He was staring at the ¡®Upgrade¡¯ option under ¡®Nanite¡¯. He really wanted to use the ¡®Overload¡¯ function on his eyes, but his neck was starting to become more of a concern. ¡®Upgrade¡¯ was an alternative that he had yet to explore. The problem lay in what the description said. He needed to create a database of similar devices. If he didn¡¯t, then any improvements the upgrade made would be minimal beyond energy saving and a general streamlining.


    That might be enough, especially in this case, to deal with the problem he was having. At the same time, it just felt like a waste to not get as much as he could from the opportunity. He believed it was unlikely that he would be able to upgrade the NetConnect a second time.


    The cost to perform an Upgrade was in how heavily material and regular nanite intensive it was. At least, that was what the description said. Actual amounts weren¡¯t mentioned, as they were different from augment to augment, and even further from maker to maker.


    Luckily, regular nanites were being created by the factory nearly constantly, until it reached a predetermined maximum amount. The counter had stopped going up a few days earlier, so the maximum amount appeared to be ten units. How much that actually was, he had no idea, outside of a lot.


    Trace selected the ¡®Upgrade¡¯ option and then moved to his eyes.


    ¡®Due to a lack of available information in the database, the upgrade for this augment will be done at a slightly decreased cost in material resources and nanites.¡¯


    Even at a reduced cost, it was still going to cost four units worth of regular nanites. Getting the basic upgrade package might be making it cheaper overall, but it was still pretty expensive.


    He switched to the NetConnect and felt his eyes widen. The same message as before was there, but more importantly, the unit cost had only gone up by one. Proof, at least in his mind, just how advanced the mil-spec eyes actually were.


    He would need to get some additional material, but if he wanted, he could upgrade both of them. Which suddenly seemed like a good idea. If he was going to ¡®Overload¡¯ his eyes anyway, then he might as well upgrade them first.


    Trace pulled up a notepad in the corner of his vision and created a list of all the materials he needed. Hopefully, he would be able to create marbles out of all of them, otherwise his mouth was going to hate him later.


    After he finished creating the list, he plugged in a module, one of the basics of mechanical engineering, and began the absorption process. It was only when the process had finished that he noticed Meredith had made some improvements to the process. It was faster and the compression algorithm had been reworked. The final product was around a fifth smaller than before, which meant that if he converted them all again, he would be able to fit a sixth enhanced module on his NetConnect.


    That was the sort of improvement that he could get behind.


    Trace kept himself busy as he waited for the mechanic to finish working on the truck. His mind drifting to how much his life had changed in such a short amount of time. It still felt more than a little unbelievable to him, and it had all started because he took that stupid job from Jonas the Slick.


    ¡°As agreed, I took the original setup and swapped it out for a modular one. You lost a little bit of max height, but it can be adjusted up and down at will.¡± The mechanic told him when he came out a while later with the rest of the bill.


    Trace peeked at it and felt a wave of relief flood his system. The work had been expensive, but not nearly as much as he had feared it would be. ¡°Do you only do suspension work, or do you also do general work on vehicles?¡±


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    ¡°I do some of everything. If you have any problems, bring it on by and I¡¯ll take a look at it.¡±


    That was what he wanted to hear.


    He hopped in the truck and lowered the lift down to a more reasonable half-inch from its previous three inches. Which was on top of the two-inch lift provided by the oversized wheels.


    Leaving the mechanic behind, he headed to the local tech market. It was a place he had always wanted to visit but had never had the money to enter. You had to pay a hundred credits to enter the market, however, as long as you bought something, you got it back when you left.


    With how tight money had been in the past, he hadn¡¯t even been able to spare those hundred credits.


    From what he had heard, you could buy nearly anything there. The prices weren¡¯t always the best; you needed to head to the actual shops in the city for that. But the market had the power of convenience, and the power of everything being easily available. Not all the stores could say the same, as many of them were spread throughout Denver and in hard-to-reach areas.


    Which was fine, as in this case, he had no idea where the physical stores would even be located for the items he was looking for. He was searching for the materials on his list. Granted, he could go to the junkyard and spend a lot of time taking items apart for scraps. The problem with doing that was now his time had actually started to have some value, as he became busier.


    After paying the fee, he began walking through the endless aisles, mentally drooling at all the toys he saw on display. There were soldering pencils, heat guns, 3D Printers, CNC Machines, scanners for every use case he could imagine, and more. The place was paradise, and this was still the hobbyist portion of the market, farther in is where the corporations began to show off their items.


    What he needed wasn¡¯t back there though, no matter how much he wanted to take a peek.


    First off, Trace bought a new soldering pencil while he was near the station for it. Soldering pencils were less powerful than soldering guns, but you could do far more precise work with them, and in his opinion, they were far more versatile as a result. As long as you weren¡¯t working with any thick wires, then you were fine. Besides, he still had an old soldering gun that worked fine. The pencils, on the other hand, due to their smaller nature, tended to fail sooner.


    From there, he kept his eyes peeled for what he had actually entered the market to buy. Precious metals, namely palladium, tantalum, cobalt, platinum, and a few others. They were metals used in nearly all electronics, and the ones he needed for the upgrades.


    Strangely enough, they also seemed to be missing from the market. He had thought that the 3D printer section might have something, and it did for a couple of the metals. The rest were nowhere to be found.


    He eventually found himself back at the stall where he had found the few metals he had been able to purchase.


    ¡°Do you know where I can get some other metals?¡± He asked the woman there.


    ¡°It depends on which kinds you want. Most of what I sold you earlier, you could have gotten at a high-end jeweler for around the same price. As for other kinds¡­¡± She thought for a moment while taking him in. ¡°There¡¯s the recycling plant if you¡¯re looking for precious metals to make something. That¡¯s what the other people usually end up doing. All the new stock is already spoken for as soon as it¡¯s mined.¡±


    ¡°Is there a recycling facility you would recommend, versus one I should avoid?¡±


    She nodded. ¡°Most of the guys don¡¯t like the one off of Sante-Fe. It¡¯s more steel and other industrial metals. The one near Park Hill is where everyone I hear about seems to have the most luck.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, I appreciate the help.¡± He turned to leave before stopping as a thought came to him. ¡°How much for your cheapest 3D printer? Something to help me get started while I learn the ins and outs of everything?¡±


    She grinned brightly at him and showed him a model that was barely larger than the setup Deckard was now in. ¡°They¡¯ve gotten ultra cheap over the years, as most of their money is made in the custom material spools.¡± Her eyes glowed for a split second as she sent a point-to-point message.


    Point-to-point messages were direct messages that anyone could send to another person as long as they were within a few feet of them and they could see their eyes. Knowing their name and number wasn¡¯t needed. It was originally popularized by stores as a way to send receipts. However, it had eventually fallen by the wayside as people stopped caring about such things.


    ¡®Don¡¯t buy this one. It is the cheapest for sure, but I wasn¡¯t kidding about the material spools being where they make all their money. Do yourself a favor and get the model three up from this one. The intake and heads on that one are unique. After buying it, go to the stall five down and buy parts 54-JB1 and LB4-H6. They are new intake modules and print head, respectively. The intake module will cost you some money, but it will allow you to put nearly any material you want through the printer. The new head is one that can handle those materials.¡¯


    She blinked and held up the printer. ¡°I think this is the cheapest one we have in stock. It is the perfect model to learn on. What do you say?¡±


    Trace took a moment to study it, before shaking his head. ¡°It feels a little flimsy. I know I said cheap, but I meant the price, not the construction of the unit itself. Do you have something in between the two?¡±


    Her lips curled upwards for a brief second as she placed it back down. ¡°Why don¡¯t I let you choose which one feels right?¡±


    She pulled out the next several models. Her fingers lingering on the model he was supposed to pick just a hair longer than the others.


    Trace kept up the charade for a little longer before choosing the model she had recommended. Considering how much effort she had gone through; she was probably being watched or something.


    Still, he almost wanted to cry when he saw how much the printer cost. The actual print volume inside it was just a little larger than his fist, as well.


    He got it partly on a whim, and partly not. Everyone knew how useful they were, and one of the next steps in his engineering was being able to create his own versions of the parts he needed to repair something. There was another reason for getting it though, and that was Deckard. He thought the other man might be able to use it to build something. It would help keep him occupied and possibly rejuvenate his mind.


    Lucking into a girl as helpful as that one was just plain nice, even if the extra parts had been even more money he hadn¡¯t planned on spending.


    As he left, Trace¡¯s impression of the tech market was that it was an incredibly dangerous place. It was far too easy to lose your money in that place.

 Chapter 43

    Poor, that¡¯s what he was. His purchases at the tech market had been fueled by everything he had sold from the scav den. When he reached the metal recycler, he found prices that astounded him. Even though they were recycling metals, the fact that they were among the sole suppliers in the area meant they could dictate prices.


    And dictate they did.


    The amounts he needed were pretty hefty, and the final tally of what it would cost him reflected that.


    In the end, he was left going to the junkyard and hunting for scrap parts. It was better than going through the trash heaps like he had done in the past, at least.


    Unfortunately, he had never really given precious metals much consideration before that point. As a result, he didn¡¯t even have anything good to create a scan off of. If he had known the material was so precious, he could have spent his time hunting for it and bringing it to the recyclers for a cut. Sure, it was in the name, but no one actually believed that anymore. Or at least, he hadn¡¯t until he actually tried to buy the metals used in electronics.


    Those were the ones that had become truly precious.


    By the time he returned to the warehouse hours later, the bed of the truck was piled high, and he was filthy.


    The worst of the holes in the roof had been fixed. However, he would need to get more metal before contacting Monroe again.


    ¡°Why do you look so angry and depressed?¡± Deckard inquired as Trace stomped into his apartment, startling him.


    ¡°Me? You¡¯re the one without a body,¡± He shot back angrily.


    ¡°I don¡¯t remember ever having one.¡±


    Trace groaned and flopped onto his bed, only to wince and roll off before it could get too dirty. He sat down in the chair he had placed in front of the computer instead. ¡°Money. My problem is always a lack of credits. This time, it just so happens to be exasperated by my own bad choices and your mother.¡±


    ¡°My mother?¡± The avatar on the screen blinked repeatedly, the eyes growing larger in confusion. ¡°What does she have to do with your money problems?¡±


    ***


    ¡°Can you bring in that 3D printer with the replacement parts? I would like to take a look at it,¡± Deckard requested after hearing Trace¡¯s story.


    It was clear to the brain-encased young man that Trace needed help learning to manage his money, among other things, but first things first. He might be able to help with the other situation if the new intake module on the 3D printer worked as he hoped it would. His money issues could wait for the moment as they were mainly just a result of Trace never having any before.


    Some simple guidance, and time should be enough to sort that matter out. As long as he wasn¡¯t an idiot.


    Trace took the chance to clean himself up while he was back out in the warehouse, as the apartment didn¡¯t have a sani-spray setup.


    A while later, he had the printer inside and fully set up on the floor. The new pieces, especially the intake module, changed its overall size a fair bit as that one piece was nearly the same size as the entire unit had been previously.


    Deckard had been more aware when Trace first returned, but the eyes of his avatar had begun to droop by the time he finished putting everything together.


    ¡°Plug it into me, if you would,¡± He mumbled sleepily.


    Trace mentally shrugged and did as he was asked. At least doing all of this had taken his mind off his earlier problems.


    ¡°Hmm, yes, this will do nicely. Just have to reprogram a few things¡­¡±


    He looked at the screen when Deckard didn¡¯t say anything more and saw that he had fallen asleep. Whatever his plan was, it wasn¡¯t getting done that night.


    Trace ran through a couple of the enhanced teaching modules and then went to sleep for the night.


    The next morning, he finished unloading the bed of the truck and stacking them on the tables outside the apartment. He would start going through them all later. He needed to head to the clinic first. Apparently, Pushman had finally decided his ill-timed nap was over.


    He waved to the receptionist as he walked past, trying to remember what Ko had said her name was, and failing. It was only once he was past, that he remembered, there was supposed to be a plaque with her name on the desk, that he had somehow missed yet again.


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    With a grunt of disgust, he continued on to the back where he could see Ko and Sevorah standing nearing Pushman¡¯s bed.


    ¡°And how are you feeling at the moment?¡± Sevorah was asking the man.


    His reply was slow in coming as he took the time to think the matter over seriously. ¡°Weak, but better than before. What happened?¡±


    ¡°See, I told you he wouldn¡¯t miss those parts we took,¡± Trace said with a grin as he entered the room.


    ¡°Uh, what now? Parts?¡± Pushman¡¯s addled mind was slow to keep up with the joke and ruined it entirely by not understanding.


    ¡°Never mind, it was a poor attempt at humor on his part,¡± Sevorah said as she glared at Trace. ¡°In answer to your earlier question, you happened. It seems you went to a slicer that barely knew what they were doing.¡±


    Trace stepped up behind Ko and looked over her shoulder as she went through the man¡¯s latest diagnostic readings. She highlighted a few of them and then passed the ink-sheet to Sevorah.


    ¡°Well, as a whole, your body is doing better, and it doesn¡¯t look as though you are in any danger of death at the moment. That said, I¡¯m afraid that is the only good news. You¡¯ve reached your limit with stimulants, even the slower-acting ones aren¡¯t viable for you anymore. Until the toxins have been cleared from your system, their effect will either be limited or non-existent.¡±


    ¡°How do I clear the toxins?¡±


    ¡°Time mainly. There are some medicines that are effective, though they are expensive. Interestingly enough, sweat lodges, despite being something so old, have also retained their effectiveness to a degree.¡± Sevorah moved to the next item on the list, and then the next.


    By the time she was finished, Pushman could only quietly lie there, angry tears creeping down his cheeks. His days as an edger were through. Due to the anger he had been feeling at his sister¡¯s death, he had blown his chance of getting revenge on Sekmore Snak-Co.


    He had failed her.


    Quietly, Sevorah led them out of the room, giving the man time to process his new reality.


    ¡°Can¡¯t you give him enough cyberware to put him back in the fight?¡± Trace asked her softly, as they walked back toward the receptionist, Anna. That was her name, he finally remembered.


    ¡°I could, but do you think that man in there has what it takes to remain mentally stable if I start cutting pieces of his body away and swapping them out for cyberware?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Ko answered for him. ¡°I¡¯d give him odds for something he couldn¡¯t see, like inside his body. If he could feel it, or see it constantly though, then no.¡±


    ¡°Those are my thoughts exactly. His mental state is simply too unhealthy to risk it.¡± Sevorah determined as they reached Anna¡¯s desk. ¡°Now then, onto other business. Here is a list of all the parts you brought back the other day. The amount was¡­ staggering. Getting rid of that particular den was a good move. Perhaps, next time, don¡¯t do it solo.¡± She finished with a heated bite.


    He chuckled weakly, taking the ink-sheet from Anna. ¡°Yeah, Ko already tore into me for that one.¡±


    ¡°Good, and now I am reiterating what she most likely told you. What you did was foolish, and you got incredibly lucky. That sort of luck has a bad habit of running out sooner rather than later, and ending up crying on my table with regrets, and that¡¯s only if they still have some luck left in them to even get here. Understand?¡±


    He swallowed hard and nodded.


    ¡°Good, now, you still owe a bit on the eyes, but because of the amount this time, it made a rather impressive dent.¡± She pointed a finger at Anna and then crooked it, beckoning the girl to follow her, as they left Ko with him.


    ¡°How are you doing?¡± He asked, placing the ink-sheet face down on the desk.


    ¡°Still a little weirded out from having met Meredith herself. All our lives, she has been this mythical figure, and now we¡¯ve suddenly met her, or at least one of her personalities.¡± Ko leaned back against the desk and stared at the ceiling. ¡°It still doesn¡¯t feel real, you know?¡±


    ¡°No, it definitely feels real to me. I¡¯ve got the head living in my apartment to prove it. Speaking of which, he woke up again last night.¡±


    Trace spent a few minutes catching her up on everything.


    ¡°Hmm, sounds like you are going to need some more titanium shavings. We both will. We¡¯ll also want to start creating this database of cyberware parts for when we do our upgrades. That won¡¯t be a problem for me, but you¡¯ll have to come down here every once in a while and scan the parts we have on hand. You should have done that with everything you brought in the other day.¡±


    ¡°Ugh, yes, I should have. I wish I had thought of it at the time.¡±


    ¡°This issue with the metals is more annoying though. We¡¯ll need to talk about it some more later. I¡¯ll come over after I¡¯m finished up here for the day. We can also talk about how to properly manage money.¡± She said with a thin grin.


    ¡°Right,¡± He stood up quickly, looking around for Sevorah. ¡°Do you know where they went? Since I was down here, I was hoping I could get Sevorah to crack my neck for me. Ever since I got the new NetConnect installed, it¡¯s been bothering me.¡±


    A flicker of worry crossed her face as she pushed him back down the hallway to Sevorah¡¯s office. Inside, they found the erstwhile mender resting with her head on a desk.


    ¡°Sev, do you mind cracking his neck for him? It seems like the new NetConnect is still bothering him.¡±


    Her head shot up; eyes narrowed as they zeroed in on him. ¡°Has this been causing any other issues that I might need to be aware of?¡±


    Trace dithered for several seconds, fighting against himself as he tried to decide on how he wanted to reply. ¡°There might be some anger issues affecting my decision-making abilities.¡± He admitted eventually.


    If he couldn¡¯t admit what was happening to them, then who could he admit it to?


    Sevorah sighed. ¡°Be honest with me. Is it because we swapped out a piece of you? How long the previous NetConnect had been a part of you or just general discomfort?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s easy, discomfort. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve thought about the other items at all. If I have, they¡¯ve subconscious, and hidden even from me.¡±


    She laughed wryly. ¡°Yes, that is always the danger. It¡¯s the subconscious mind that causes problems for the vast majority of people.¡± Her fingers tapped away on the desk. ¡°I can certainly crack your neck for you, maybe even do some adjustments. The real issue here is the weakness in your neck. The new model is heavier, and there is no getting around that. As you grew older, you should have gotten your original NetConnect upgraded multiple times. Each time, they would have gotten heavier, and their specs better.¡±


    ¡°So, I went from the one-pound toddler version to what? The ten-pound adult model, without giving my neck time to adjust to the extra weight.¡± He asked.


    ¡°In essence, yes, at the time, I thought I was doing you a favor. Now, I see I obviously wasn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°No, I do appreciate what you did. Without it, I wouldn¡¯t be able to use these eyes nearly as well as I do.¡±

 Chapter 44

    When Trace left the clinic later, his neck was tender from the recent surgery, but for the moment felt much better. Sevorah had taken the time to crack his neck before going to work on him. The adjustments she had made, whatever they were, seemed to have made a difference for the moment. She had warned him that they weren¡¯t a long-term solution and given him a set of neck exercises he needed to start doing every day.


    He was feeling so much better though, and his mind was less clouded by discomfort. The sudden loss of that irritable anger made him aware of just how much it had begun to influence his actions. It was such a subtle thing that it was only now he was realizing how different he had been acting.


    His introspection was cut short as bullets began hitting the side of his armored truck. Originally, he had thought the extra plating looked ridiculous. Now he was glad to have it.


    Looking around, he promptly spotted the shooters as people from the gang that had moved in nearby. No doubt this was retaliation for him taking out the people on the roofs earlier.


    It was becoming ever clearer to him that they were an annoyance he would need to take care of at some point.


    For the moment, he punched the accelerator and drove to the warehouse as quickly as possible. The doors slid open as he drew close, and then shut as he sped inside.


    With a growl, he grabbed the scout rifle and headed to the roof.


    He used the K-10¡¯s scope connection to search for any danger at the top of the ladder. There were several people already up there and waiting on their own rooftops. Carefully, he balanced the barrel against the edge of the hatch to help steady his aim, and fired.


    His wrist twinged, protesting against the awkward angle. Trace held on to the ladder with one hand and leaned back, straightening his wrist some. The roar of the non-suppressed gun hurt his ears, but the extended barrel on the pistol had no threading for one.


    He switched targets, took a moment to aim, and fired again.


    Again and again, he repeated the process, doing his best to eliminate as many of them as he could while remaining hidden. After the fifth one, they got the hint and began to evacuate the rooftops. They couldn¡¯t see him, while he obviously didn¡¯t suffer from the same problem. It was a simple matter of how many people were they willing to lose to him before they broke ranks, and five was the magic number.


    Trace carefully made his way down the ladder, cradling his throbbing wrist the entire way. He had done his best to mitigate the damage to it, but in the end, he had still been firing from an awkward angle. It wasn¡¯t broken or anything that serious. He had simply put some strain on the joint that it wasn¡¯t used to.


    Inside the apartment, he found Deckard awake and working on the 3D printer, as lines of code scrolled down the screen of the device. He wasn¡¯t using the new method of programming, but the more challenging one it had been based on. It was far more capable than the new method, but it came with its own numerous difficulties. Problems that Deckard was used to, as it was one of the many programming languages he had been raised using.


    Trace left him alone for the moment, and after giving his guns a quick cleaning, he headed down the stairs to the basement. He needed to check on the pumps and make sure they were still working properly.


    They were, though the waterline on the walls, had only dropped an inch or two in the last couple of days. His original estimate on the amount of time required had been off, it seemed. He could add more pumps, but that increased the amount of water going out into the sewer, and the resulting visibility. Which he did not want to do.


    That was fine. He was in no hurry to finish the project. He wasn¡¯t looking forward to cleaning out all the mold, grease, and other crap that had collected down there throughout the years.


    Back up in the apartment, he set about the task of recompiling each of his enhanced teaching modules. When he was finished with each of those, he finally selected his sixth module. He almost went with the next course of programming; however, he went with something that he felt was more useful. It was a subject that he had been using a fair bit recently, system breaching. Granted, the basic teaching module wouldn¡¯t give him much useful insight into the subject, but it was a step.


    Once those were done, he looked over to find Deckard asleep once more. Whatever he was in the middle of doing was really giving his brain a workout, which seemed like the best thing for him at the moment. His mind might be a tad scrambled, but getting all the rust out during a good shakedown cruise of a workout could only help.


    With that in mind, Trace worked through several courses on the enhanced teaching modules. It was a good thing they could dilate time, otherwise he would only be making progress in one of them instead of all of them.


    The next morning, he woke to messages from Ko and Revlock.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    The one from Ko was short and simple, with her apologizing for never coming over. A patient had shown up as she was getting ready to leave who needed emergency care. She would come over in the morning instead if that was alright.


    The message from Revlock, on the other hand was more interesting. He had a job for him, along with news about who the leak had been.


    Trace replied to Ko, telling her he couldn¡¯t as he had a job, but maybe later instead. Then he checked Deckard¡¯s nutrient mix, giving him some more, before leaving in a rush.


    ***


    ¡°Why are we meeting all the way out here?¡± Trace asked the job broker as he climbed out of his truck.


    They were near one of the walls that surrounded the city. They weren¡¯t exactly impenetrable by any measure and were downright ancient by this point. However, the towering construct served to keep out the rabble, and the patrols removed any hope for the smugglers to gain an edge.


    Revlock had taken longer to arrive than the edger by a couple of minutes, giving him enough time to look around.


    ¡°What do you know about the walls?¡±


    Trace shook his head. ¡°Nothing really, about as much as the next person, I guess. They¡¯re old, a relic from the last World War, but they are still maintained by the city and constantly patrolled by the police. The smugglers have tried to create holes in the past but haven¡¯t succeeded.¡±


    ¡°Eh,¡± Revlock wiggled his hand back and forth. ¡°That last one is up for debate. There are rumors that some groups have actually succeeded in creating their own holes in the wall outside the notice of the police. That¡¯s not what brought us here today. It¡¯s how often the walls get patrolled, and how many cameras there are on the spread all over the thing.¡±


    ¡°Okay, it¡¯s starting to sound as though they missed something?¡± Trace guessed, hoping it wasn¡¯t Meredith. She wouldn¡¯t have had any reason to draw attention to herself by entering the city in this manner. But you never knew what the solitude of space might have done to her perception of things.


    ¡°They did, and all the cameras in the area went down at the same time. Only a single officer says he saw anything at the time.¡± Revlock rubbed the back of his head and leaned close to him. ¡°This was originally going to be one of Stick-Point¡¯s gigs to hand out. He is currently busy, and it was passed to me instead. The old man did tell me something in confidence though. He said you had a sweet set of eyes.¡±


    Trace nodded slowly, not understanding where the man was going with this particular line of oddness.


    Talking about another person¡¯s cyberware, while slightly rude, was hardly a breach of trust. At least it wasn¡¯t usually, he supposed it might be slightly different for augments such as his eyes that were special. It wasn¡¯t something that he had truly thought about before. Maybe, after this, he would need to take a few minutes and decide how he felt about the matter.


    Revlock muttered to himself when he saw Trace didn¡¯t understand what he was trying to say. ¡°He didn¡¯t go into specifics except to say that they had a sensor suite.¡±


    ¡°Ah, why didn¡¯t you just say so?¡±


    ¡°I was trying to be polite, in case someone happened to be listening.¡± The job broker replied tightly.


    ¡°Fine, I appreciate the concern. What am I scanning for?¡±


    ¡°Everything you can think of, thermal, radiation, lingering-infrared, trace chemicals. I don¡¯t know. You¡¯re the one with the sensor suite.¡±


    ¡°Got it. I¡¯ll just run through them all, blindly looking for something.¡± Trace rolled his eyes as he pulled up the settings for all the different scans. ¡°At least tell me what I¡¯m looking for. I can only run a limited number of scans before my NetConnect starts to overheat.¡±


    ¡°It was dark, but the officer swore it was big and that he saw it switch from running on all fours to just two legs. It then proceeded to scale the entire wall over the course of a few seconds, jumped over the top, and vanished.¡± He had led them over to a small depression in the pavement that had been blocked off.


    ¡°This is where it landed? You mean it didn¡¯t climb down, but jumped?¡± Trace tilted his head to stare at the rim of the wall several hundred feet above them. ¡°And it survived? Are you sure we aren¡¯t dealing with an ¡®Aberration¡¯?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s crossed everyone¡¯s mind, believe me,¡± Revlock replied, looking stressed at the mere thought of one of them entering the city. ¡°We¡¯re thousands of miles away from the ¡®Irradiated Zone¡¯, with the ¡®Line of States¡¯ separating them from us as well.¡±


    The Line of States consisted of what used to be the states of Kansas, Nebraska, and then North and South Dakota. Together, they created a partial line that kept everything in the irradiated zone from entering this side of the continent. The bottom portion of the line was controlled by the remains of New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. However, they were part of their own little kingdom that had agreed to work with everyone else.


    The irradiated zone was another remnant of the last world war, a partial gift from the steel goddess. The aberrations that were born as a result of the radiation and whatever else she had dropped in those areas were terrifying. The beasts became larger and stronger. Thankfully, they didn¡¯t become any more intelligent, usually. A few did, the aberrations among the aberrations, the ones that were truly meant to be feared.


    Regardless, Revlock was right. Those things were nothing more than the tales mothers told their children at night to scare them out here.


    Just to be sure, Trace ran a radiation scan first, sighing with relief when it came up with nothing.


    ¡°Okay, there isn¡¯t any radiation, so it¡¯s not an aberration.¡± He switched to the next scan, searching for any trace of chemical residue.


    It had fallen from an extreme height, maybe it had taken some damage, or spit on the ground nearby, something.


    Sure enough, his eyes began highlighting a series of marks on the ground that they could use to follow it. The beast, whatever it was, had been speedy, but it had also been sweating up a storm. Every time its large paws had hit the ground, a veritable gush of water had exploded out of them.


    He relayed the new information to Revlock as they jumped in his truck to follow after it. The job broker promptly sent out a message about what they had found.


    ¡°This is odd, yeah?¡± Trace asked as he hung his head out the window, while Revlock drove. ¡°There must be something wrong with whatever this thing is to be sweating this much, and then there is the matter of all the cameras going out.¡±


    ¡°Some things are just better left unanswered. We do the job we¡¯re paid to do and leave it at that. Pursuing things any further can get us in trouble.¡± Revlock told him firmly. ¡°Trust me on that. After we find this thing, you do not want to poke your head into the matter any further than this. The police already look bad over the matter. They¡¯ll be looking for any reason to lash out.¡±

 Chapter 45

    The search eventually led them to a pond, which then fed into a large sewer-pipe. It was in the mud around the pond that they got their first distinctive paw-print of what they were chasing. It had the shape and characteristics of an extremely large black bear. However, that couldn¡¯t have been right. Black bears could certainly stand on two legs, but they weren¡¯t exactly known for running in that state.


    Nor were they known for anything else this particular creature had done, for that matter.


    Revlock tapped Trace on the arm as they stared into the dark abyss of the sewer pipe. ¡°Just received a message. We¡¯re done. The job has been marked as completed.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to take your advice on this and not pursue the matter further,¡± Trace said after a moment. ¡°I think something else is going on here though. Whatever this thing was, it wasn¡¯t an aberration, or at least it wasn¡¯t a normal one.¡±


    The job broker gave him a hard stare. ¡°Like I said before, knowing too much is dangerous. We¡¯re edgers Trace, nothing more. I want you to think about something, and then keep it to yourself. If this wasn¡¯t a traditional aberration, then what was it, and where did it come from?¡±


    Trace felt his mind blank as a possibility he hadn¡¯t considered before that moment crawled its way into his brain. At least one of the corporations was conducting experiments on the aberrations, and if one of them was doing such a thing, then more of them likely were.


    He blinked, as a new thought followed the first. If this was a corporation-created aberration and there was no radiation coming off it, then that meant the radiation wasn¡¯t the source of their mutations. That was what they had been taught growing up. However, it was apparently wrong.


    ¡°I have so many questions,¡± He muttered as they went back to his truck.


    ¡°And if you are very lucky, they will never be answered,¡± Revlock replied softly. ¡°Trust me, playing with those sorts of enemies is only asking for a quick death.¡±


    A transfer of credits came through a few minutes later.


    Using the chemical residue scan wasn¡¯t quite as intensive on him as the S&R was, but it had still started to heat up his neck something fierce by the time they finished. He was glad they paid so quickly. It was nowhere near enough to buy the metal he needed for the upgrades, but it was one step closer.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you have something to tell me about the leak?¡± Trace said as they reached the spot where Revlock¡¯s car had been left.


    ¡°Yeah, you know how that woman said she took care of the leak for you?¡±


    He nodded. That meeting was a little hard to forget.


    ¡°It seems as though she meant Jonas the Slick. He was found iced the other day and we¡¯re thinking it was her.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± He laughed. ¡°That scuzzy bottom feeder had the balls to leak information on an edger to someone? It couldn¡¯t have happened to a nicer guy then.¡± The truck-cab fell into an awkward silence. ¡°Sorry, that was a little rude.¡±


    ¡°Nah, he deserved it, but at the same time, he was a job broker and there is a code there. All of us are a little conflicted on the matter. He broke our code, but we should have been the ones to ice him and mete out justice, not some unknown third-party.¡± He slipped out. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯ll keep my eyes open for jobs that suit you. We¡¯ll talk later.¡±


    Trace decided to take a more round-about way than normal to reach his warehouse. The gang was starting to become increasingly annoying to him, and he would really rather they not hurt Ko when she came to visit later.


    He had been eliminating a few of their members here and a few there, and still, they kept causing him problems. That meant they either had a lot of members, or this little feud of theirs had become personal. Most gangs, from what he understood anyway, would typically leave someone like him alone in this situation. He wasn¡¯t a rival gang, but simply someone living in the area who had shown how high the cost would be to drive him away.


    It made more sense for them to leave him alone, and yet, that wasn¡¯t what they had been doing.


    So, now it was his turn to go on the offensive. During his time on the rooftops, he had been able to partially map out certain parts of the area. It wasn¡¯t enough to say for certain where their base was, but he knew the general areas it wasn¡¯t.


    More specifically, Trace also knew that it had to be somewhat close to his warehouse. There was no reason to cause him this much trouble if he was simply on the periphery of some imaginary territory line that they had claimed.


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    As had become his custom, recently, all his guns were in the backseat of the truck. He was as ready as he could be, as he never left the apartment without his body armor vest on. At some point, he really needed to buy some more body armor, but this is what he had for now.


    Reaching behind him, he grabbed his scout rifle and placed it on the passenger seat. Next was the assault rifle, though this time it was a different model than the one had used with the last scav den. Last up was the smg he hadn¡¯t really gotten to play around with much yet.


    The revolver was still inside his courier bag, which had been twisted around to his front.


    As soon as he found the place, he would be ready. Most of those guns were only coming in as backups. He was doing this as a proper wraith, and not as the crappy one he had done the scav den as.


    This time he would be patient, and moving, unseen, and unheard.


    The other guns were for when something went wrong outside his control. He wouldn¡¯t be causing the problem like he had last time. The problem with his neck had been such a small problem and yet it had such a larger effect than he had been willing to give it credit for at the time. Losing control of yourself really was terrifying.


    Trace parked his truck in an alley and climbed up the nearby ladder to the roof. He wanted to get a better view of this area instead of simply driving around in circles. Three streets over, he saw a bar. A few gang members were hanging out in front of it. A street further over, he spotted what appeared to be a mechanic''s garage. Though one that had been updated significantly compared to the outdated model he had been forced to use for cover in the scarpo town. There were a few more gangsters loitering out in front of it as well.


    The prime location, however, at least in his opinion, was an office building that looked as though they were in the process of taking over. They weren¡¯t near the center of Denver, where the large corporations were. Still, the fact that no security or police patrols had even made a token effort told you just how useless they really were if you didn¡¯t live in the right areas.


    Since he had found his target, he made his way back down to the truck and drove close to the building in question.


    He didn¡¯t park right next to it, but stayed a street away where his truck would be out of sight. The office building had a fire escape built up the side that went all the way to the roof, and he intended to make full use of it. He was going to attack them from the top down, and even if he was wrong about this being their base, at least he was still clearing out some filth.


    He¡¯d grab any money they had in their crypto-vaults as well, so it wouldn¡¯t be a complete loss in any case.


    Trace strapped the scout rifle to his courier bag and then inspected the smg and the assault rifle. He couldn¡¯t bring both of them. There wasn¡¯t enough room on the courier bag for that. He placed the assault rifle onto the back seat and strapped the smg to his bag. It was smaller, lighter, and faster. Not to mention he hadn¡¯t gotten to really play with it yet.


    As silently as he could, he ran up the old fire escape, wincing every time it creaked, or made any sort of noise. He was half convinced there would be people waiting for him on the roof simply because they had heard all the noise he was making.


    There wasn¡¯t though, and he was simply psyching himself out.


    The roof was empty, save for the remains of what appeared to be an absolute bender of a party. There were over a dozen kegs spread about the place, with pools of what smelled like piss, but could have just as easily been beer. The smell alone was enough to turn Trace off from alcohol, and he couldn¡¯t imagine that the taste was any better.


    Keeping low, he scanned the nearby rooftops for any watchers. There was no one. They had people watching his roof, but none watching their own, sloppy. He headed for the door in front of the stairs leading down. Once again, he took a moment to inspect it for traps. There was nothing that he could see, even when he cycled through the scans on his eyes.


    None of this meant all that much. While Trace was being more careful than he had in the past, in the end, all he was doing was making things up as he went. He hadn¡¯t been trained as a wraith. No one had accepted him as their apprentice and taught him what they knew.


    He had stories, a couple of enhanced teaching modules for knives and guns, and a bunch of half-baked ideas. That was all. Stick-Point was allowed to offer him certain materials in that regard, however, that was only after he raised his tier to four first. Until then, he was on his own.


    The same as he always had been.


    Inching the door open, he slipped inside the building and quietly closed the door behind him.


    The suppressed CD-10 was soundlessly pulled from its holster as he crept down the stairs, careful to avoid any of the detritus strewn about. His eyes automatically adjusted for the low-light inside, allowing him to place each step with care.


    The top floor was an absolute mess. In the short time since the gang had taken over the building, they had ruined the interior. Chairs had been slashed, glass had been broken, and random bits of graffiti were now spray-painted all along the walls.


    Walking through the trails of glass certainly made his job more difficult, but it was still doable.


    The first room he came to was filled with lumpy mattresses, that were stained in ways he wished he could unsee. The smell of the room itself was revolting, and he had no idea how anyone could stand to sleep in such a place.


    Before moving any farther, Trace ran an S&R scan, spotting six people spread out across the range of the scan. There might be more on the floor, but there were at least six people for sure and none in the next two rooms.


    His eyes automatically highlighted the cameras strewn about the place. They also told him the network was down. The gang had taken over the building but had either not bothered with the network and shut it down or had accidentally ruined it. Either was fine with him, as it was one less thing he needed to worry about.


    Even knowing there was no one inside the next couple of rooms didn¡¯t stop him from peeking into each of them. He needed to make sure there were no other surprises lying in wait at his back due to carelessness.


    All he found were more disgusting rooms that should be burned and anyone that had ever slept inside them de-liced.


    Trace fell into a crouch and approached the room that the earlier scan had shown someone inside.

 Chapter 46

    There was indeed someone inside the room. The person was currently enjoying some alone time with his hand and something inside the Virtual-Connect.


    That one look was enough for Trace, who raised the suppressed pistol and fired. The man slumped over dead, a portion of his head missing, and his pants forever down with indignity. Gingerly, he entered the room and swiped the credits from the man¡¯s crypto-vault. Just getting near him while he was in that position made him feel uncomfortably dirty.


    Pushing on, he kept sweeping each room he came to. They were slowly becoming cleaner the further he entered the floor. With each no longer looking like wallows that scavs slept in. They were still unclean, but it was approaching the level of month-old dirty sheets with the occasional stain, instead of the outright filth it had been initially.


    The next three gang-members he had found were put down with an ease that equaled the first. They were each napping when he found them.


    Trace grabbed what he could from them and then dragged their bodies to join the first fellow. Eventually succeeding in creating a somewhat disturbing, but increasingly humorous tableau of bodies in awkward positions around the first partially disrobed man. It was important to find joy in your work; he had been told, and well, that was what he was doing.


    The last two the scan had shown him were on opposite sides of the floor. It was tempting to run another S&R scan, but he needed to be judicious in their use, otherwise he would risk cooking his brain. It was something that he was trying to be more mindful of, especially since he was still near the beginning of the mission. Overheating his equipment straight out the gate would be nothing but a rookie move, and not one he was willing to make.


    So, he slunk along, staying low in an attempt to minimize any visible profile he might accidentally make.


    The fifth person he found at a computer desk, typing away at a keyboard that used ideographic images instead of letters. It was one of the methods a person could use when they were breaching a system. Each symbol was associated with a script of some kind.


    In other words, what the gonk in front of him was attempting to do was no better than be some lame version of a script-kiddy. Admittedly, it was how you were taught to start out; he had perused the teaching module on the subject already and this was part of the early lessons. That said, they also told you straight up that it was a crutch you needed to distance yourself from as quickly as possible.


    It was a slightly more manual version of the system breaching module, or at least it could be if you had the right scripts.


    Which then begged the question of why they weren¡¯t just using one of those? At this fellow¡¯s stage of development, it was still better and faster to use a pre-made module instead of attempting to use your own setup.


    Trace glanced around the area. Then again, he supposed there wasn¡¯t exactly a race against the clock to break into the system. Why not use the chance to get some good practice in?


    A shot to the back of the head ended him quickly, though it did create a fair bit of a mess over the desk computer. At least it had missed the keyboard, which Trace made sure to unplug and grab. It might be a crutch, but it was a useful one for learning and he had already discovered how useful system breaching was.


    He stuffed the corpse under the desk and continued on his way. From his current location, he could see that he had covered roughly half the floor up to that point. If he ran a Search & Rescue scan from his current location, then its range wouldn¡¯t quite be enough to cover the rest of the floor, but it would be close.


    He decided to use another scan.


    Vaguely, he caught sight of someone walking between floors on a second set of stairs at that end of the building. The scan didn¡¯t quite have the power to penetrate between floors, but it could show him if someone was on the stairs, as that was more of a void.


    Other than the one person heading further down, that side of the floor was thankfully empty.


    Trace turned his attention to the one person he knew for sure was still on the floor. Someone who seemed to be in the process of violently cursing out a taco chain as they glued their cheeks to the unholy throne of porcelain. From the squirts and grunts that were mixed with the accompanying moans echoing out of the bathroom as they emptied out everything they had ever eaten; it was clear they were enjoying themselves. It was perhaps a little mean of him killing the man on the toilet mid-butt-plosion. However, there was something to be said for useful distractions.


    Waving the smell away from his face, Trace quickly, but carefully, swept the rest of the floor. He knew the S&R scan had said it was clear. However, if he was going to leave this floor at his back, he wanted to be extra sure.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The next floor down was made up of several conference rooms, and dozens of rows of what had been cubicles. The walls on many of the cubicles had been torn down in such a manner that Trace had difficulty believing the gangsters were the culprits of that particular offense.


    The cubicles weren¡¯t being used at the moment, but the tables in the conference rooms were covered with weapons. Each of the rooms had over a dozen people inside that were taking apart, and cleaning all the different guns. Some of the guns were their own, as he saw them get holstered once they were finished. Others were merely placed into a different pile from the rest.


    While he mentally congratulated them on being better than scavs, it looked as though this was a floor he would need to skip. Which isn¡¯t exactly what he wanted to do. That was the entire reason he had taken the time to clear out everyone on the top floor. Yet, no matter how he thought about it, this was not a floor he should take on at the moment.


    It would create too much noise and would only result in him getting noticed early.


    Grinding his teeth, he carefully closed the door and used the blade of a knife he had picked up from one of the dead guys to jam it shut. It wasn¡¯t perfect, but it would hold them back for a few seconds.


    That was another item he needed to add to his ever-growing list of crap to get at some point. A laser or portable spot welder of some kind, something that he could have used to actually seal the door shut.


    The list of toys he found himself wanting versus what he could realistically afford or carry around was drastically different. It was rather annoying really.


    Sneaking down to the fifth floor, Trace found a small side room where the server was. He made a note to come by and snatch that later. He had all the components back at his place for a server setup but was missing the actual server. It didn¡¯t matter that he had no personal use for one; he was sure that Deckard could find a use for it.


    Closing the door behind him, he marked its location in his mind and moved on. This entire floor was comprised of the company¡¯s tech department, it appeared. There were components scattered across the floor where the new inhabitants had carelessly tossed them, uncaring of their value. There were surprisingly high-end oscilloscopes sitting next to magnification and vacuum chamber equipment.


    It was a mix that Trace wouldn¡¯t mind having back at the warehouse. He was suddenly finding himself curious as to what the company that had been in this building had been working on.


    Some of the equipment was non-standard for anyone working with cyberware. Which was pretty much everyone these days, it seemed, which only made him more interested.


    That could come later. For now, he needed to delicately remove anyone on this level. Without ruining any of the equipment.


    At least that was his intention until he heard a crashing from further in.


    There he saw a group of the gangsters taking bats and pipes to the equipment. They were destroying it all, simply for the sake of destruction.


    Before he had time to second guess what he was doing, or even realize it for that matter, he had already shot two of them. This time around, he was less concerned about kill shots and more worried about debilitating them. Preferably in ways that would keep them from screaming. He wasn¡¯t being too picky though as he fired, swapped magazines, and continued firing.


    The second magazine ran dry, and his trigger finger twitched a few more times as he took a second to breathe.


    That had been an absolute rush of speed shooting, and yet, his aim hadn¡¯t suffered as much as he thought it would.


    The world around him warped around the edges in an unsteady bubble effect. It forced him to notice for the first time how slow everything had become.


    He breathed out, and everything abruptly returned to normal.


    Trace staggered as suddenly he felt everything, all the adrenaline, anger, fear, annoyance, and more that he had pushed aside in those seconds came rushing in. He had no idea what had happened, but the aftereffect was discombobulating to the system.


    Each of the gang members collapsed to the floor, sprouting several new holes in each of their chests.


    At the same time, a new notification appeared in the corner of his vision.


    - Administrator Trace Delevey has unlocked the hidden function ¡®Perks¡¯


    - Special first Perk unlocked has been identified as ¡®Overdrive¡¯


    - Overdrive 1 ¨C A special Perk that increases the adrenaline in the user¡¯s body for a temporary full body burst


    - Second Perk unlocked has been identified as ¡®Steady Hands 1¡¯


    - Steady Hands 1 ¨C Reduces recoil from current weapon by a small amount


    He blinked and rolled his eyes, great something he probably wouldn¡¯t be able to control.


    Still, he had to admit, those perks had come in at exactly the right time to be useful. Once this was over, and he was back safe at the apartment, he would need to go through the G.H.O.S.T. System menu and learn what he could about this new function.


    Swapping out the empty magazine for yet another fresh one, he drained each of their crypto-vaults dry of money. A quick run through the floor confirmed that it was empty, and he was free to go down to the fourth floor.


    At last, he found where everyone was congregated together. The other floors had been mostly empty, and he was starting to think he hadn¡¯t actually found their headquarters. That all changed when he laid eyes on the fourth floor.


    There were over a hundred people scattered about the place. Far too many for him to deal with at the current time, in other words. However, he might just be able to send a message.


    Trace rarely used them himself, as they were far too noisy, but the people he fought tended to enjoy carrying around grenades. As a result, he always had an ample supply of them on hand. Case in point, at the moment, he currently had over twenty stuffed into his courier bag.


    He thought about how he wanted to do this and then laid eight of them out on the floor next to a knife. A ninth was set to the side.


    Trace edged the door to the floor open, grabbed the first grenade, popped the pin, and threw it as hard as he could. In rapid succession, the next seven all followed to different parts of the floor. He didn¡¯t particularly care where, as he was looking to cause maximum damage with these, more than eliminate everyone.


    As soon as the eighth grenade was in the air, he slammed the door shut and jammed the knife into place.


    The ninth grenade was tossed behind him down the stairs while he sprinted up them. The time for quiet had ended. At least that was what he told himself as the entire building trembled. It could be that he was just a terrible wraith in training.

 Chapter 47

    Trace heaved himself up the stairs as a cloud of dust licked at his heels. He had already sprinted past the fifth-floor landing and kept on going. There were still people on the sixth floor, and he needed to make it past them before they had a chance to see him. It was true he had jammed the door shut. However, there was still a second door on the other side of the building.


    He hit the landing for the sixth floor and snagged the hilt of the knife, ripping it out of the door-jamb as he rushed past. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, and the muscles in his legs were burning. Still, he refused to stop moving.


    The building wasn¡¯t in any danger of collapsing despite the earlier trembles the exploding grenades had caused.


    The only question in Trace¡¯s mind was how many of the gang members had he actually taken out with those grenades?


    He had mixed goals with this little personal mission of his. He had wanted to cause a lot of damage to them, eliminating as many as possible. Which, at this point, was something that he could safely say he had accomplished. The problem was, if he left right now, he would be leaving all the goodies he had found on the fifth floor to languish.


    All that fun tech¡­


    Screw killing people, Trace didn¡¯t particularly care one way or another about doing that. He would just as soon do less of it if only to save on the cost of ammo. When it came to tech-based loot though, that was another thing entirely.


    Messing around with technology was something that he actually enjoyed doing. If he had a hobby, that was it. It might not have started out that way, but at some point, he had grown to actually enjoy taking things apart, working on them, and even modifying them in the limited way he had been able to. Now he had the chance to do more, both because of the equipment and the teaching modules he was learning from.


    Giving up on the chance to acquire this equipment for free, on the other hand, was a chance he was finding incredibly hard to turn away from.


    Trace made it to the landing between the sixth and seventh floors before his lungs gave out and he had to stop. He slid to the floor with his gun in hand as he tried to make as little noise as possible. It was hard with how much his throat was burning.


    Down below, he heard the door burst open as a stream of heavy footsteps ran out of the room.


    Ignoring the phantom taste of blood in his mouth, he triggered an S&R scan. From his position between floors, he was able to catch the silhouettes of several people above him, and three people below. A couple of gangsters had gone up the stairs on the other side of the building. For the moment, they were still looking around the floor, but it wouldn¡¯t take them long to find his handiwork and then come his way.


    He needed to make a decision, to leave, or see this to the end¡­


    A sigh escaped his lips as he used the wall to help himself stand. It would have been nice to get that server, the vacuum chamber, and all the other items, but it wasn¡¯t meant to be.


    Pausing at the top of the stairs, he listened for their footsteps before continuing onward. Judging from the conversation he was hearing at the moment, they had stumbled upon his work of art in the bedroom.


    Frankly, it would be an absolute shame not to add their bodies to the display as well.


    Staying low, he crept out from the stairwell and made his way toward the voices. There he found three of them standing outside the room, looking in, with what he liked to think was awe at the masterpiece he had created.


    Three quick suppressed shots later, and the room had three new bodies to add to the display he had created around the man with his pants down.


    With that done, he went to the roof and prepared to leave, only to realize there was one problem with that plan. Using the fire escape to go back down wasn¡¯t exactly subtle or quiet. He had gotten lucky the first time around; it was doubtful to happen again.


    Still, did he dare try it, or was there an alternative?


    What would a proper wraith do in this situation?


    Ignoring the fact that they would likely have never found themselves in this position. He also needed to ignore the myriad of extra cyberware, tools, training, and equipment they would possess as well. Never mind, maybe even exploring that particular route in his thoughts was a bad idea. The two of them were just too different at the moment.


    Mapping out the roof took only a few extra seconds of his time. Unfortunately, it only revealed one hiding place. The small roof above the stairway door, a spot that would no doubt be promptly searched if they couldn¡¯t find him. None of the buildings were close enough for him to jump to either.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    That left him with only one method of going down.


    At least running down stairs was easier than going up them. Before he could change his mind, Trace hopped over the edge and onto the fire escape. The old metal rattled and shook as he took them three at a time. The metal rods holding the contraption to the building shook, and pieces of brick and concrete fell all around him.


    Still, it held.


    A window on the sixth floor opened as he thundered past, the furious face of a gangster making a brief appearance. Then Trace vanished down the stairs as he kept descending as quickly as possible. The hand not holding tight to the rusted railing felt blindly for one of the clips on his courier bag. Snagging it, he managed to unclip the object without slowing.


    He passed the unoccupied fifth floor and rounded on the fourth floor, where he had thrown all the grenades earlier. The window was blown out and the fire escape was no longer attached to the wall, but the welds holding it to the rest of the escape still looked good. That didn¡¯t mean he wanted to spend a lot of time on that section though.


    The metal grating moved precariously under his feet as he hurried past the window, not even daring to take a moment to look inside. All he wanted at the moment was to get to safety. He could learn how badly he had hurt them later, assuming there was a later.


    The window on the third floor came into view just as it was being flung open. Trace pulled the pin from the grenade he had been carrying in his hand for the last couple of flights and threw it in as he ran past. The fire escape screeched above him when it went off. The force of the explosion, combined with their already unsteady state, had torn several of the holding rods from the wall.


    There was a scream as the gangster that had been chasing him from the sixth floor toppled over the edge of the railing. He hit the pavement below with a wet thud, silencing him.


    Trace didn¡¯t stop. He was too close to the ground now that even if he fell, he would be mostly fine. With a final burst of speed, he jumped down to the last landing, slid down the ladder, and took off down the side of the building toward where he had parked the truck.


    Only once he was safe inside the armored interior of the truck did he take a moment to breathe.


    He¡­ maybe he wouldn¡¯t tell Ko about this one. The other times he could blame on the new NetConnect, this particular endeavor though had been all him. It had been going so well too, and then he had decided to toss those grenades. That wasn¡¯t even necessarily the worst part. It was him running back upstairs. Why had he done that?


    Why couldn¡¯t he have just tossed the grenades and then run downstairs? It would have been faster. Sure, he hadn¡¯t cleared it yet, which is why he hadn¡¯t thought to do it, but still.


    Taking back alleys as much as he could, Trace drove back to his warehouse.


    Once he was back inside and cleaned up, he sent off a message to Ko, letting her know he was back so she could come over.


    Inside the apartment, he found Deckard awake and working away at the 3D printer.


    ¡°Hey, how goes the progress on that thing?¡± He asked, setting his freshly sanitized clothes to the side to dry, while he grabbed some fresh ones to change into.


    ¡°It is a more laborious task than I originally thought it would be,¡± Deckard admitted as his avatar frowned for him. ¡°The programming language everyone uses these days is absolutely appalling! This printer comes with sixty-four gigabytes of onboard universal memory, and during the printing process, it is all being used due to their poor coding practices. If they had simply stuck with a proper language and taken the time to eliminate memory leaks and overflow issues, they wouldn¡¯t need more than twelve, or perhaps fourteen gigabytes of universal memory. Less if they ran everything through a proper encoder beforehand.¡±


    ¡°And let me guess, that¡¯s what you are doing right now?¡±


    ¡°Hardly,¡± Deckard sneered. ¡°What I¡¯m creating would make them weep at their own inadequacies if they ever so much as caught a glimpse of it.¡±


    ¡°Right¡­ well, have fun with that. I almost got my hands on a server for you today, but there were a few too many people in the way. Maybe next time, assuming you can use one, of course.¡±


    ¡°Oh, yes, please. I used to have zettabytes of information stored on the data prisms of my mother¡¯s servers. It would be nice to see what I can recreate from memory, and what I can improve on from scratch. It will give me something to do until we can get me a body.¡± Deckard fell silent. ¡°I assume that is something you are going to try to do eventually, right?¡± He inquired in a small voice.


    Trace nodded at his cameras. ¡°Your mother asked us too, and we would have done it anyway, as long as we felt you were up for it. Speaking of which, you seem a little more together mentally today.¡±


    ¡°My mind is indeed clearer, at the moment, as soon as I start to grow tired though, a fog begins to set in. My memories are still somewhat fragmented, and while I don¡¯t think anything is outright missing, everything is¡­ out of order.¡±


    ¡°Well, as long as you¡¯re starting to feel even a little better, it¡¯s an improvement. As for your body,¡± Trace sighed and ran a hand through his hair. ¡°We¡¯ll do what we can, just don¡¯t expect it to be anytime soon. Not unless you have some secret credits stored somewhere. I need to get the materials to perform some upgrades on my own cyberware. It¡¯s the same with Ko. Not to mention, I¡¯m still paying off my eyes. Unless we magically come across an android body in the trash, we¡¯ll be buying everything piecemeal. One part at a time.¡±


    ¡°I do not believe I ever possessed a traditional crypto-vault. There may have been another form of account that my mother set up for me, but I never accessed it, as I never needed money. It is highly unlikely that I would be able to access those credits in my current state, in any case,¡± Deckard told him with a downcast expression, understanding just how long of a road he was looking at.


    There was a knock on the door, letting them know Ko had arrived, cutting the conversation short.


    ¡°Come on in,¡± Trace called out.


    Ko¡¯s hands were full of food and a bag full of small titanium marbles when she walked in.


    ¡°I wish you would have told me you were bringing stuff over,¡± Trace muttered in embarrassment. ¡°I would have helped you carry it all.¡±

 Chapter 48

    Ko ran a few quick scans on Deckard while he worked. Her equipment was no longer in danger of melting down now that he was awake and in control. She still couldn¡¯t do any scans through his braincase; however, she hadn¡¯t brought the equipment along for that anyway. Regardless, his nanites gave her all the information she needed at his prompting.


    ¡°This is incredible,¡± She muttered after a few moments of staring at the ink-sheet in silent awe. ¡°They have mapped your brain so thoroughly it¡¯s incredible. They have a record of what your brain looked like before you were shot, though it doesn¡¯t seem to be quite as detailed. The point is, using that as a sort of blueprint, they were able to keep your brain in mostly working order. Pieces died and were then brought back early on.


    ¡°I¡¯m guessing that is where the fragmentation and general fuzziness is coming from. As they mapped more of your brain, and I almost want to say, learned what they needed to do, their methods improved. Looking at the scans they took from when you first woke up, versus right now,¡± She shook her head. ¡°These little buggers might not ever be useful for anything else. They¡¯re too specialized at this point. You¡¯d have to wipe their programming and start over, but one thing is for sure, they know your brain.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯s he doing, recovery-wise?¡± Trace asked, peering over her shoulder at the image and text that meant absolutely nothing to him.


    ¡°Better. They could only do so much from a blueprint. Everything from here on out will be up to Deckard and simply exercising his brain as much as possible. The mental exercise seems to be doing him the most good. Everything else is just a matter of time. That said, if he did lose some memories, they might be gone for good.¡± She shrugged. ¡°There¡¯s a lot of information here, but I doubt anyone has ever worked on a case like this before.¡±


    ¡°I appreciate you taking the time to look me over, Ms. Devko,¡± Deckard thanked her politely. ¡°I was indeed worried that I would lose more of myself. Instead, I can be hopeful that I will regain that which has been lost.¡± The avatar yawned as the eyes flickered shut. He had been struggling to hold on long enough for her to finish going over the data and say something. Now it was time for another nap.


    ¡°So, how is Pushman?¡±


    Ko groaned and flopped back onto his bed. ¡°Ugh, he is so annoying now! He will not stop sobbing. Sevorah finally just hit the guy with some tranquilizers to shut him up. I¡¯m not sure we did him any favors when we saved his life. He might thank us eventually, but it certainly won¡¯t be anytime soon.¡±


    Trace thought about that for a moment. ¡°I should visit his apartment again.¡±


    ¡°You just want to grab more of his stuff, since he can¡¯t use it anymore.¡± She accused him.


    ¡°Yup,¡± He agreed readily, seeing no shame in admitting to what he was going to do.


    ¡°Whatever, just don¡¯t take everything. He might not be able to go on jobs anymore, but he still needs to be able to defend himself.¡±


    The two settled back to eat and chat, gradually getting to know one another better a little bit at a time.


    ***


    Trace heaved the new hip-height shelf unit into place. The three on the back wall of the apartment were now filled with all his previously gathered weapons and ammo, along with the new items he had just gathered that morning. The majority of Pushman¡¯s module and weapon armory had now been moved to those three shelves.


    The new shorter shelf was where he was going to move Deckard¡¯s braincase setup, along with the 3D printer. He was currently on the desk computer, with the printer on the floor.


    It was messy for one thing, and it also kept Trace from using the computer for anything.


    His new home was slowly coming together.


    With that completed, he finally forced himself to do what he had been putting off since the day before.


    He had already read the morning message concerning his skeletal and muscular repair statuses. Both had increased by several points, as expected. The nutrition shots were still working, and Ko had brought him a few more the night before.


    Trace opened the G.H.O.S.T. System menu and looked through the menu for the Perks function that he had unlocked the day before. However, there was no new entry in the main menu, or in the subsequent submenus of the existing items. It was as though he had imagined the entire notification.


    Luckily, he could go back through them, assuming he hadn¡¯t fully erased the message and re-read them. There was one particular notification that he had not erased due to it pertaining to something he had not seen before. A precaution that worked out this time in his favor.


    ¡°I unlocked the hidden function Perks,¡± Trace mumbled to himself as he went back to the system menu. ¡°Where is it then? I don¡¯t see any Perks?¡±The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    As if by magic, a new entry appeared at the bottom of the list for a few brief seconds before fading away again.


    He concentrated on that spot, and before he could even say the word, the entry reappeared.


    ¡°When it says hidden function, it means that seriously. Even after it¡¯s unlocked, you still have to prompt its entry into existence.¡± Trace was stupefied at how ridiculous that was. It felt kind of cool, but at the same time, it also seemed like overkill. Not that he was going to complain. Supposedly, this system had been created with the idea of everyone using it in mind. Perhaps certain safeguards such as this made sense when you thought about it in that way.


    Clicking on the option before it could disappear again revealed a vast list instead of a new submenu. A small message appeared on top of the list, momentarily obscuring it from view.


    - Perks are granted to the Administrator when they have shown enough familiarity with a subject that their nanites have completed all pre-requisite connections.


    - Perks require a vast number of special and regular nanites throughout the learning and activation process.


    - Without an incredible amount of resources at your disposal, you should not expect to unlock more than a few perks.


    Trace dismissed the message with a grunt. That explained where everything had gone yesterday. All the nanites he¡¯d been gathering for the upgrades had vanished in an instant.


    The list of possible perks was a long one. It was also completely useless. There might have been hundreds of entries, but they were all greyed out with question marks where the names should be. The two sole exceptions were the ones he had already unlocked.


    When he clicked on them, he got two pieces of information. The first was the same short description he had received in the original message. The second was a list of requirements to upgrade the perk.


    It was nice to at least know that much, but for everything else, he was going in blind.


    Closing everything, he readied his pack and guns. While the information the menu had given him was ultimately useless, he still had things he needed to do. The world didn¡¯t stop turning simply because the information he received was less than helpful.


    All you could do when that occurred was buckle down and keep on working. Which is exactly what he was going to do. He needed money, lots of it. So, that meant jobs, big ones, small ones, all of them.


    More than that, if he was going to be effective, then he needed a partner. A team would be even better, but Trace needed to be realistic with himself. Finding one person you could trust these days was already a miracle. Two was practically unheard of, in his opinion, and more than that was just a joke.


    Oddly enough, Trace felt as though he could trust Ko, and to a lesser extent Sevorah, in that way. However, they were non-combatants, so it didn¡¯t count. They were menders; they weren¡¯t meant to be fighting.


    The question of the moment was whether or not he could trust Monroe, or rather Flash-Fry, to have his back in a fight.


    It was a question he just didn¡¯t have an answer to, and one he wouldn¡¯t without working with the man further. Which is something he would need to do before they went and got that truck if they went and got the truck.


    Trace needed to clear his mind, and that meant going to the junkyard and fetching some more sheet metal for the roof. After spending so much time there over the years, the place had turned into his own therapeutic zone of sorts.


    Before heading over there though, he was going to take a look at the building he had gone to the day before. He was even bringing along his new sniper rifle just so he could do it from even farther away than he had with the scout rifle.


    What he saw after climbing to the top of a building he deemed tall enough had him using the scope and his eyes to zoom in as close as possible. There were bodies everywhere in front of the building. They were scattered all along the road in careless piles.


    He would be the first to admit he had probably killed a decent number the day before with his guns. If he was lucky, then maybe that same number with all the grenades he had tossed.


    There was a reason he had chosen to leave though, there were simply too many of them. He had given them a decently bloody lip, maybe even taken a finger or two as a result of his attack. Nothing more.


    What he was seeing spread across the old, cracked pavement was far more than a missing finger or two.


    Someone had gone in after him and taken out their whole fracking head.


    Trace took a moment to count but stopped when he reached a hundred. There were still a few more piles still. He had thought this was a small-time gang, but no small-time anything had those sorts of numbers that quickly.


    Feeling a little numb, he climbed down and got back into the truck.


    The junkyard could wait a little longer. He needed, or at last really wanted, to find out what had happened.


    Passing the bar he had spotted as a hangout before, he saw another pile of dead bodies in the street, the first of several that he needed to drive around.


    He stopped the truck just shy of the office building and flagged down a nearby kid. ¡°What happened here?¡±


    ¡°Someone invaded their turf yesterday and caused a mess.¡± The kid told him, while his finger was jammed so far up his nose, searching for gooey treasure, that he was likely scratching his brain at the same time. ¡°Everyone here decided that was a good time to expless-¡± His nose twitched, and he sneezed, expelling his finger along with a glob of goo, which he promptly plopped between his lips to snack on. ¡°Express their something or other with them.¡± He shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t remember the exact words used, but they shot everyone still alive in there.¡±


    Trace edged away from the kid. He had been off the streets for a couple of years by that point and didn¡¯t want to relive the experience by being too close to him.


    It didn¡¯t take much thought on his part before he was moving the truck closer to the building. This was his chance to get a few things before the others got to them, if they hadn¡¯t already.


    He headed inside after locking the truck and made a beeline for the stairs. Looking around could wait until after he got what he wanted. The server was first, and then the heavier items.


    The door to the server room had been opened, and the rack with all the data prisms had been taken. The server itself, however, was still in place. It seemed as though, someone had their eye on his prize as well. Without wasting another moment, Trace unplugged everything and stored it in his duffel bag along with the cables.


    Since there was still some room in the bag, he moved about the floor, grabbing all the nicer components he saw. There were bags and small boxes of everything, from micro-capacitors to resistors and switches. They were all basic items, but pieces that were also generally needed in bulk.

 Chapter 49

    ¡°What do you think you are doing?¡± A domineering voice asked from behind Trace as he was looking through a box of processors.


    He stuffed it in his duffel bag before turning to see who was talking to him. Standing there was a tall man with a shotgun pointed at his chest.


    ¡°I¡¯m picking up a few items I had marked for myself earlier,¡± Trace told him readily. ¡°I¡¯m not entirely sure I like where you¡¯re pointing that thing. You might want to change the location of that barrel.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t recognize you. All of this belongs to those of us who stood up to the ¡®Midway Gang¡¯ and eliminated them. That doesn¡¯t include you.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure about that?¡± Trace asked, far more calmly than he actually felt.


    ¡°Yeah, I am. Everyone who fought them lives around here. We were the ones being crushed under the heels of their boots, getting sucked dry as they stole all of our booze and other goods. Now some ignorant edger comes in and just starts grabbing whatever he wants.¡± The large man¡¯s finger started sliding closer to the trigger. ¡°Where were we when we needed your help?¡±


    Faster than the untrained man could blink, Trace pulled out his CD-10 and shot him a single time in the foot.


    The shotgun thundered a single time as the brute jerked it toward the ceiling. With his free hand, Trace reached out and yanked the shotgun from his hands.


    ¡°Being an edger is a job, you total gonk,¡± He snapped at the hobbled man. ¡°Did any of you people ever think to post it with the job brokers? As for the other parts of what you said,¡± Trace leaned closer to the man. ¡°I do live around here, and I was here yesterday. Is that understood?¡±


    The man¡¯s face paled as he finally understood what Trace was saying.


    ¡°Good, now I¡¯m going to take my bag and leave.¡±


    There was more that he would have liked to grab, a lot more, but it wasn¡¯t worth the hassle it would have caused. He had gotten the server, and that was the main thing he needed at the moment. Everything else was simply things that would have been nice to have for in the future, not anything he had an immediate use for.


    ***


    The stop at the gang building had taken longer than he originally planned for it too. However, it had also become an event all on its own instead of him simply checking out some damage as had originally been planned.


    Still, he had gotten some goodies, so he wasn¡¯t too annoyed with everything.


    What he was annoyed with were all the new kids he saw climbing over the heaps of material in the junkyard. Further out, he could see the same thing happening in the unprocessed piles of trash at the landfill.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on here? Where did all the street-meat come from?¡± Trace asked one of the older men he had encountered at the junkyard before. They had never exchanged names before, but they would help load each other¡¯s vehicles or carts if they needed it.


    He grunted and spat to the side. ¡°Some corp bought out the buildings they were staying in and evicted them. Guess they are going to make a new megastructure in the location.¡±


    Trace nodded in understanding. That was how he had originally discovered the junkyard himself. The building he had been squatting in was razed to the ground and he had followed some of the more experienced kids to it. All the metal and old cars provided plenty of protection until they could find a new spot to squat.


    As long as they didn¡¯t stay in the junkyard or landfill long-term, then people would turn a blind eye to them. After all, the adults who would be doing the complaining were often the same ones who had been in their position years before.


    ¡°I won¡¯t be around for a while after this visit then,¡± He told the man. ¡°I¡¯ll get their help to find and load up on what I need. I have no desire to be around while they play their power games here.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re an edger now boy, you can afford to avoid this place. I can¡¯t,¡± The older man said wearily, having seen this exact scenario play out too many times now.


    ¡°You best be careful, then. We both know how crazy things will be here for a while.¡±


    An answering grunt was all he got in return as they went their separate ways. Trace hadn¡¯t been joking when he told the old man he wouldn¡¯t be back for a while after this run. The street-meat kids would have the run of the place for the next few weeks at least, and he had no desire to get entangled with any of that drama.


    Trace waved a few kids over and together they began searching the area for usable sheet metal. Even with all of their help, it still took the rest of the day. By the time he left the junkyard, his truck was completely loaded down with metal, and all the kids who had helped him had thoroughly earned their pay.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    Back at the warehouse, Trace unloaded what he could by virtue of pushing it out of the truck bed. With that done, he brought the duffel bag into the apartment and revealed the goods to Deckard, who was asleep at the moment.


    With nothing better to do, Trace gathered up all the pieces that the scavs had been using for their setup and began putting it all together in the closet. He had enough wiped data prisms and unused data prisms by that point that storage wasn¡¯t going to be an issue. Hopefully, the server itself was a decent one. The model looked fairly new, but that was all he could say about it.


    As soon as the pieces finished going together, he plugged the machine into his desktop computer and turned them both on.


    The computer could see the server, and the server could see a little over half of the data prisms. The rest needed to be reformatted for its specific file architecture. Once that was completed, he was looking at an absolute unit of empty space.


    At least, that¡¯s how it seemed in his mind. In reality, it was little more than enough for someone like Deckard to use for a project or two.


    With that particular project finished, he sent off a message to Monroe, went through the enhanced teaching modules, and then went to sleep.


    ***


    Trace had taken apart and been studying one of his spare scout rifle mods for over an hour when Monroe arrived the next day. He didn¡¯t have any particular idea on what he wanted to do with it. Instead, he was merely using the opportunity to learn everything he could about how it worked.


    Since it was a spare and a double, it didn¡¯t particularly matter if he ruined it. As long as he got some value out of its destruction, he would be happy. Not that he wanted that to happen.


    He let Monroe and van Black Betty inside the warehouse and showed him all the sheet metal he had managed to gather the day before.


    ¡°How much of the roof do you think you will be able to repair with all of this?¡±


    The big man stepped over to his truck and looked over everything that was still in the truck bed, along with what he had pushed out onto the ground.


    ¡°If we¡¯re just talking about patch jobs for the rust and holes, then this might be enough.¡± He rumbled, stressing the word. ¡°The roof really needs more than that done, but I would say that is the absolute minimum.¡±


    ¡°Alright, you start on that then. When you¡¯ve finished, we¡¯ll talk about your truck.¡± Trace held up a hand, stalling him from saying anything. ¡°I¡¯m not saying we¡¯re going to do it right now, but I¡¯m open to the idea. We just have to do a few things together first.¡±


    Monroe grinned, revealing several metal teeth on the same side as his cyberware arm. ¡°That¡¯s fine, as long as we get there in the end.¡±


    Trace shook his head and went back to the table he had been working at. The mod was called a ¡®Target Tracker¡¯ at the same time that the targeting reticle would appear in his vision. Whatever he was aiming at would be marked in red. Even after he removed his finger from the trigger, the tracking would remain until he took another shot, or a minute had gone by. It was an interesting mod, and it did work through walls. That was actually the main reason he wanted to learn how it worked.


    Most of the other vision-based mods he had seen didn¡¯t work once they lost sight of the target.


    What he had come up with so far was pretty much nothing.


    It used some surprisingly advanced sensors, but that was it. However, he had seen more advanced models on mods that couldn¡¯t manage what this one did. It was annoying, and ultimately beyond his ability to understand at the moment.


    Trace put it all back together and stored it in a corner next to his projects for later. Maybe he would have Deckard go through the programming on it at some point. Surely, that would reveal something.


    Inside the apartment, he found the braincase in question just about to finish up with his project of rewriting all the code for the 3D printer. While Deckard was asleep, Trace had run a second connection from the server to him. He was now able to backup everything he wanted. He could also access the net again through the server¡¯s connection to the desk computer.


    Deckard was strangely quiet when Trace entered the apartment and sat on the edge of his bed.


    ¡°My mother¡­ She caused a lot of harm after she believed I died. Didn¡¯t she?¡± The screen on the 3D printer was going through a series of diagnostics, as Deckard updated each piece in turn.


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, she did. Steel goddess Meredith -that¡¯s what we call her these days- went berserk for a bit.¡± Trace relaxed onto his back and closed his eyes. ¡°She completely closed off space to everyone but herself. Multiple World Wars happened, both because of her and outside of her. The world supposedly went from being some glorious utopia to the mess we have now.¡±


    ¡°All because of her,¡± Deckard said softly.


    ¡°I used to think that, you know? She was easy to blame. No one ever sees her. The goddess moniker is fitting, as she is practically a mythical being. Then I did meet her. It wasn¡¯t even for very long, only a couple of minutes. And you know what I found instead of some mythical goddess? A distraught mother, one who had lost everything the day you were attacked. She may have facilitated our downfall, but the people who attacked you are the actual cause of all of this.¡±


    The 3D printer beeped, and the head began to move up and down, then side to side as it cycled through its new boot-up sequence.


    ¡°I¡­ need to think about things. This was never the plan. We wanted to help people. That was the entire purpose of Koarden Enterprises.¡± There was a moment of silence as Trace sat up to watch the printer finish whatever it was doing. ¡°Alright, I believe it is ready. Can you grab a spare piece of electronics and put it in the intake tray?¡±


    It was with some confusion that he went outside the apartment and grabbed something from a table. It had been beaten and deformed to the point where he couldn¡¯t even guess at what it might have been.


    Regardless, he gingerly dropped it into the intake module and stepped back. A series of lasers formed across its opening, cutting it into pieces. A little farther inside, there was another set of lasers placed in a grid that diced everything that came into contact with them. At the bottom, he could just barely see a glowing hopper that liquified the metal.


    The printhead began to move as whatever program Deckard had ordered it to run began to process. A little at a time, they watched as a series of small blobs began to form at different points on the print plate.


    ¡°Hmm, it¡¯s not perfect, yet,¡± Deckard announced after they had been watching it work for a minute. ¡°But it does work, sort of.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean? What is it doing?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s sorting the metals of the item you put in there, obviously.¡± The avatar said smugly. ¡°That pile is titanium, that one is gold, that tiny one palladium.¡±

 Divergence Six

    Project Hierophant, despite being responsible for numerous advancements throughout the world of engineering, was cast aside and destroyed in the summer of 1948. It had been created as a weapon of war, and the world was at peace. The government made the decision to remove the reminder of what they had done.


    The world was looking to the stars. The past needed to be put behind them.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    If only things were that easy.


    Nearly a quarter of the innovations used in the first rocket constructed came about as a result of that project. In the year 1950, the first rocket carrying a satellite into orbit was launched. It was a joint project between the Americans and the British. The Russians launched three separate rockets, each more desperate than the last in rapid succession after this provocation.


    None of them made it out of the atmosphere due to problems in their construction.

 Chapter 50

    While they waited for the 3D printer to finish going through its first run, Deckard sent a live stream of all the data its sensors were collecting to the desk computer. Trace had only run through the ¡®Enhanced Intermediate Programming¡¯ a few times, so he couldn¡¯t understand everything perfectly. However, he was getting the general gist of the information.


    The programming Deckard had done was good, but the sensors and CPU were having some issues. They were identifying everything, calculating the stream, and then determining where each section of the mixed fluid needed to be deposited as it went past. It wasn¡¯t something that the device had been made to do.


    The normal function of the modded intake tray was simply to allow someone to throw in a chunk of metal and use it, instead of depending on a pre-made spool. What Deckard was having it do was far beyond its normal use case and specs.


    ¡°This is incredible, but it looks as though it¡¯s having problems working through the increased computational load,¡± Trace muttered as he took in the information and compared it to the increasingly jerky movements of the printhead.


    Deckard¡¯s avatar clicked its tongue as it killed the sorting part of the process. A stream of liquid metal ran out of the printhead onto the platter beneath it. Emptying everything that had been in the intake hopper in one continuous go.


    ¡°I¡¯ll have to redo the programming I had running that part of the part. With the server available and all the specs I have on the 3D printer, I¡¯ll be able to run any future tests in a virtual environment. Give me a few days and this should be back up and running, properly this time.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, Deckard. This will be a lot of help going forward.¡± The biggest issue Trace was facing at the moment was money. Whether it was better teaching modules, cyberware, equipment, or materials, they all cost credits. Something that had a bad habit of vanishing just as quickly as he got it.


    His skills were finally starting to increase, but along with them was the need for money.


    Trace left Deckard to his project, while he sank into the depths of his enhanced teaching modules. He spent some time on the virtual gun range, switching between a few different weapons. His aim was slowly starting to get better. He was still no deadshot, but he wouldn¡¯t be missing the target either.


    The majority of his time on the virtual range was spent with the scout and sniper rifles. There was something there that he felt he was missing. He had the posture down, and it wasn¡¯t correcting him on anything. Despite that, there was a lingering feeling that he was missing something. So, he kept practicing whenever he had the chance.


    Then he would move on to other subjects, such as knives, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or the newest one to join the lineup, system breaching. He would spend some time in each of them before going to sleep, or throughout the day when he had the chance.


    It was tiring, and his brain hurt from all the learning, but he also felt more alive than ever before.


    By the time he had finished running through them all, Monroe had almost finished for the day.


    ¡°How much time will you need to finish up the roof with what I got here?¡± Trace asked him as he cleaned up.


    ¡°Another two full-days and then a couple of hours on a third for cleanup work should do it. Less if I can get everything in position and cut quicker, those two things are what have been taking the longest so far.¡±


    ¡°Alright,¡± Trace waved him over to the tables outside the apartment, where he leaned against it. ¡°I was thinking about what you said the other day, and I wanted to discuss a few things with you about it.¡±


    Monroe nodded and sat on top of the table, the legs underneath groaning a bit. ¡°I figured as much. Let me guess, you¡¯re looking to create your own team?¡±


    Trace laughed. ¡°Do I look like the type of person who should be in charge of a team of people? No. I¡¯m looking for a partner who can have my back on larger jobs. Someone with a large vehicle and can help me strip a place to the ground for maximum profit when we hit certain locations.¡±


    The big man rolled his eyes. ¡°So, a two-person team, then?¡±


    ¡°Ugh, fine. Call it what you want. Make up names and random designations if you really want to.¡± Trace said with a dismissive wave of his hand.


    A booming chuckle rolled through the air. ¡°I¡¯ve always avoided teams in the past. They interfered too much with my work as a welder.¡± He sighed and ran a calloused hand over his recently sanitized bald head. ¡°That was in the past though. Despite how dirty and hard the work is, I enjoy it. Unfortunately, it just doesn¡¯t pay as well as it did even a few years ago.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°The corporations are squeezing everybody who doesn¡¯t work for an affiliate out of business. I have a bottle of gas in there.¡± He pointed his thumb at Black Betty. ¡°That cost me three times the original bottle, just to refill it a month ago, and word is they¡¯re going to raise prices again. I can¡¯t afford to pay my bills doing what I like anymore.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why you became an edger?¡±


    Monroe shook his head and tapped his cyberware arm. ¡°A story for another time, perhaps. I¡¯ve been an edger for years. It¡¯s simply the reason I¡¯ve needed to become more active again lately.¡±


    ¡°Understandable. We each have our own reasons for doing what we do. Either way, if you are interested in doing this, then we need to work a few jobs together before getting that truck. Get to know each other better, and make sure we can actually stand one another for more than a few minutes at a time.¡±


    ¡°You done this before?¡±


    ¡°Nope, but I¡¯ve talked to Stick-Point about how these sorts of things work enough that his advice has gradually wormed its way inside my brain.¡±


    ¡°Stick-Point, huh? He¡¯s a bit of a more high-end job broker than I was expecting you to be associated with.¡±


    Trace shook his head. ¡°I use everyone. Stick-Point¡­ I guess you could call him my primary, but that is only because he¡¯s the one who helped me first. He introduced me to the life when I was nothing more than a starving street-meat kid. He pushed me and was the one to show me that there was more to life than searching for scraps in the gutter. Because of the association between us, I can¡¯t use him for jobs too often.¡±


    The conversation between the two gradually shifted to different topics, before Monroe slapped his thighs and declared that it was time for him to leave.


    Staring around the warehouse, Trace noticed for the first time how dim inside it was. It had never been an issue before then because of all the holes in the roof. Now that they were getting fixed, the light from above was disappearing.


    His eyes would still be able to compensate for the lack of light, but that might not be the case for Ko, or Monroe¡¯s eyes. He would need to get new lights for the inside of the warehouse soon. Yet another item on his growing list of things to do.


    ***


    The next day found Trace at the clinic with Ko at his side as they worked their way through the collection of cyberware parts in stock. They finally had a chance to discover how one went about building a database of information on the devices. It was a mixture of their eyes, and the nanites, which meant it was fairly slow. Thankfully, as long as they were close enough together, they could share the results of their database. Something they wouldn¡¯t have been able to do otherwise.


    None of that was helpful for them at the moment, but it was something that needed to be done for the future.


    When Trace was done with that, he wandered out and found Pushman just staring blankly at the wall. Physically, he was ready to go back to his apartment. Mentally, he had all but given up.


    Sitting down on the edge of the man¡¯s bed, Trace couldn¡¯t help but feel annoyed.


    ¡°You know I have gone over to your apartment and stolen pretty much every modular and weapon you had over there. I¡¯ve even taken more than a few of your clothes.¡±


    There was a small reaction as he turned to look at Trace, but didn¡¯t say anything.


    ¡°Nothing huh, I guess your sister didn¡¯t mean that much to you after all.¡± That did it. Pushman exploded into a rage and lunged at him.


    Trace slid off the bed and danced out of the man¡¯s reach, keeping him moving, and not letting him rest.


    ¡°What am I wrong? You experienced one little setback and just gave up like it was nothing? Are there no other options in life? Has no one else ever been hurt by one of these companies?¡±


    Ko had arrived moments earlier and stopped Sevorah from stepping in when she heard him say that. An inkling of where he was going with this began to worm its way into her mind.


    ¡°Do you honestly think you¡¯re the only one who wants to hurt them?¡± Trace roared as he tripped Pushman and shoved him to the floor. ¡°We saw the plans you had made. Do that for someone else!¡±


    ¡°What do you want from me?¡± Pushman wheezed. ¡°Do you want me to become a job broker or something?¡±


    Trace stilled and slowly nodded. ¡°I was just thinking of a planner for teams looking to hit corporations. But yeah, why not? There¡¯s an opening at the moment.¡±


    ¡°What? Who died?¡± Sevorah asked from the doorway.


    ¡°Jonas the Slick, he was caught passing information that he shouldn¡¯t have been, and¡­¡± Trace ran a hand across his throat symbolically.


    The brief little jaunt around the room had taken all the energy out of Pushman. The two menders quickly hooked him back up to the machines that would help him breathe and regulate his heartbeat.


    ¡°I¡¯ll¡­ ne-need¡­ to think¡­ about¡­ what¡­ you said,¡± He managed to gasp out after several tries.


    Trace nodded and turned away.


    ¡°Did you¡­ really¡­ take¡­ everything?¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t seem like you were going to use it again.¡±


    ¡°Bastard.¡±


    Trace chuckled and left the room.


    Ko came up behind him and hit him on the arm. ¡°What were you thinking? Do you have any idea how close he was to having a heart attack just now?¡±


    ¡°No, and I wouldn¡¯t have cared,¡± He told her defiantly. ¡°I don¡¯t know how you do it. I¡¯ve only had to see the guy a few times and already I was ready to flatten him.¡±


    ¡°Yes, why did you react that way?¡± Sevorah demanded from behind him.


    Trace swallowed and turned around. ¡°Err, hi Sev-orah, how are you doing today?¡±


    ¡°Answer the question.¡± Her foot began tapping on the floor impatiently.


    ¡°What do you know about Pushman?¡± He asked her after a moment.


    Sevorah blinked in surprise, caught off guard by the question. ¡°What? You mean his personal life? Next to nothing, you two have let one or two things slip, but that¡¯s it. Why?¡±


    Trace shared a look with Ko, who gave a small nod. ¡°His sister worked for Sekmore Snak-Co. She was poisoned while working for them, and he had come up with what looked like a decent plan to get revenge and do a fair bit of damage to them. A few weeks ago, she abruptly died on the operating table, and he went berserk, threw the plan away, and simply attacked them in a frontal assault.¡±


    The senior mender glanced back at the room and sighed. ¡°You were hoping he would be able to use that same expertise and come up with a plan for Siren¡¯s Rush. Weren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°The thought had crossed my mind a time or two,¡± He admitted.


    ¡°Fine, I want to see them to pay just as much you, or Ko do at this point. If you are going to use the poor man like this, make sure that he gets his own revenge as well at some point.¡±

 Chapter 51

    ¡°Did you really take all his guns and modules?¡± A tired-sounding Stick-Point asked Trace over a call.


    He was sitting at one of the tables, taking apart all the tech that would be shoved into the 3D printer later. Most of it was too large to fit in the intake module in their current forms, so they needed to be made smaller. That was only part of the reason behind what he was doing, as a small collection of parts and useful components had begun to build up in a box to the side.


    At the moment, he had no idea what he was going to do with all of them, especially if he wasn¡¯t going to be actively fixing things anymore. However, he figured it wasn¡¯t a bad thing to collect them, since he knew they were useful. Eventually, he would find something to do with them, even if it did take a while. In the meantime, they could stay in separate sealed containers on the shelves out in the warehouse.


    ¡°Why do people keep asking me that?¡± Trace wondered aloud. Sevorah had asked him that as well before he left the clinic. ¡°Of course, I took them all. He wasn¡¯t going to use them, even if he did make it back to the apartment. I¡¯ll return the teaching modules as I¡¯m done with them.¡±


    Stick-Point chuckled and muttered something that Trace didn¡¯t catch. ¡°He wants to be a job broker, said you suggested him for the position. That true?¡±


    ¡°Sort of. I was originally angling him for more of a master planner position, for teams that needed help on large jobs. He seems to have a gift for that sort of thing, but he took it another way.¡± Trace wicked the last of the solder away from the joint and lifted the connector free from the board. ¡°Why? Are the others actually thinking about letting him join?¡±


    Becoming a job broker wasn¡¯t as easy as just picking a spot in the city and calling that your territory. In the past, it might have been like that, but those days were long past. Nowadays, the job brokers had rules, there was a council. It kept things organized and from getting out of hand.


    They had tiers similar to the edgers, that allowed for multiple job brokers to work inside the same territory. There were dozens of them spread throughout the city, though Trace had only ever dealt with a small handful of them. Which was by design, you worked with those you knew and built up trust. They were the ones who would sort through the extra-shady jobs before they ever reached your eyes.


    In Trace¡¯s case he had recently taken jobs that had caused his trust in Jonas the Slick, Stick-Point, and even to a lesser degree Revlock to suffer. It was at least partially why the man had stuck around during the last job. He had wanted to ensure that nothing went wrong.


    ¡°They¡¯re undecided at this point, but the odds are good that they will let him take over Jonas¡¯s place.¡±


    ¡°Huh, well, it¡¯ll be good for him, I guess. Speaking of, I need a few two-man jobs. Flash-Fry and I are thinking of working together on a job that will take some time. So, we need something that will put us together and show how the other operates.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t realize he was ready to finally start taking the work seriously. What changed?¡±


    ¡°The corpos are jacking up prices on everything, trying to squeeze out independent contractors. He can¡¯t afford to keep his day job.¡± He replied simply.


    ¡°I always knew he was crazy. That¡¯s fine, though, I have a few jobs that I couldn¡¯t send you before due to difficulty. With a partner like him at your side, this gives me a few more options. I¡¯ll let Revlock and the others know as well.¡±


    Trace threw the last of the disassembled parts into the box by the door of the apartment and stood. It had been a fruitful discussion with Stick-Point, and true to his word, he had sent a new job his way right after they had hung up.


    It was another job outside the walls, in the wastelands. They wouldn¡¯t be visiting a scarpo town this time though. It was strictly sticking to the wastelands and the old ruins out there. Anyone exploring those ruins needed someone to watch their back. It was just good sense, and that was before the job came into play.


    Stick-Point had received word that there was a drug operation being run out of one of the ruins. He didn¡¯t know which one, or how many people they might encounter. As such, the job was mainly reconnoitering and learning everything they could about the location. Maybe quietly eliminate one or two people, if possible, but that was it.


    They were then to send that information to Stick-Point from a safe location. He would then decide if they received a continuation to the job to destroy the operation, or if their part in the mission was done.


    He wasn¡¯t taking any chances of a repeat of Trace¡¯s last job with him.


    Before Trace could call up to Monroe, a rumble from the waterlogged basement shook the floor. Dust jumped into the air as Monroe poked his head through the hole he had been about to patch.


    ¡°What in the ever-loving shizzba was that?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m about to find out if you feel like joining me.¡± Trace ran into the apartment structure for his courier bag with the revolver and an assault rifle with a bright flashlight attached to it.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    He waited for Monroe to grab his own weapons of choice along with a light and led him over to the corner with the elevator. In all the times that the big man had been inside the warehouse, he had never even realized there was a loading elevator there. Granted, the overall dimness inside the place had something to do with that, but it was rather well disguised.


    Trace hit the button and lowered the floor several feet until there was a gap where they could look down into the basement below. Stopping the elevator there, they both got on their bellies and turned on their flashlights.


    The waterline, which had continued to go down thanks to the pumps running all the time, was now gushing out of a large hole in the wall. The wall which had possessed a crack previously was several feet thick. From what Trace could now see, it had contained a -clogged- drainage pipe that pointed down at an angle into the sewer runoff. The same ones he was actively draining the water through using pipes in the upper warehouse section.


    ¡°It looks like you have a new escape route,¡± Monroe quipped, the beam of his light lingering on the new hole for a few moments.


    ¡°Great, lucky me. It¡¯ll be easy to get out of, but impossible to get back in again, not to mention everything else that can climb up the hole can now enter my basement.¡± Trace complained. His own flashlight was sweeping the basement, but the roiling water made it impossible to spot anything. It was all trying to escape from the newly created hole, disrupting what had once been calm, inky-black waters.


    ¡°What do you think could have created that hole? Denver doesn¡¯t have rumors about crocodiles in the sewers that I know of.¡±


    Trace groaned and dialed Revlock. ¡°Do you know if they ever caught that, uh, special bear we were tracking the other day?¡± He asked with a side glance at Monroe.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t heard anything one way or the other. Why? I thought I told you to forget about it all.¡±


    ¡°And that¡¯s exactly what I was doing¡­ Until something broke into the basement of my warehouse just now that just so happened to come from the sewers.¡±


    Revlock cursed. ¡°Whatever you do, don¡¯t give the corpo agents a reason to attack you!¡±


    ¡°Corpo agents? What corpo agents? There aren¡¯t any-¡± Monroe¡¯s hand slammed Trace¡¯s head into the floor of the concrete elevator just as someone opened fire on them from down below. ¡°Never mind, they just arrived.¡± He finished thickly, his mouth filling with blood. Monroe hadn¡¯t had time to be gentle and Trace¡¯s gums and lips had suffered as a result. He hung up as more bullets whizzed by just above their heads.


    ¡°What do we do?¡± Monroe asked, laying down flat, as he slowly inched away from the edge of the platform.


    ¡°Well, I can¡¯t stand to reach the controls with them firing at us,¡± Trace followed the man¡¯s example and inched away from danger as well. ¡°We can either wait them out or fire back. The problem with waiting them out is if they decide to actually eliminate us. This isn¡¯t the only way down to the basement.¡±


    Monroe groaned. ¡°Is there a way for us to even fire back at them without getting hit?¡±


    Trace nodded and pulled out his K-10. ¡°This gun has a fun little scope mod on it. It links up to my eyes properly instead of just giving me the normal targeting reticle. I can point and aim it over the edge with minimal danger to myself.¡± He might lose a hand or some fingers, but it was better than his life.


    ¡°Would you be able to help me aim as well?¡±


    ¡°Ugh, maybe? If you fired a few rounds so I knew where your gun was pointing, I would be able to tell you what to do, but it would be pretty wasteful and imprecise.¡± Trace told him doubtfully, wondering why he would even want to try something like that.


    Monroe rolled over and unholstered two guns. The first was a fairly standard Lexoya 10mm, while the second was a behemoth of a revolver that was even larger than Trace¡¯s Colter 700. This was also a Colter 700, but it wasn¡¯t a Special 4, but the even larger Special 6.


    ¡°I know this is completely the wrong time to ask this, but do you have a supply of ammunition on that thing? Or do you reload yourself?¡± Trace asked in awe as he slipped his courier bag around to the front and partially pulled out his own revolver. ¡°None of the shops I¡¯ve been to have anything for it, and none of the reloading units I have seen can even handle the cartridges.¡±


    Monroe let out a low whistle as he looked at Trace with new appreciative eyes. ¡°Can you actually fire that thing without breaking your wrist?¡± He nodded. ¡°Huh, maybe pairing up with you is a good thing, after all. I mostly reload, but I know a couple of people who make custom ammo as well. It¡¯s expensive, but well, there¡¯s no other choice when it comes to this baby.¡±


    ¡°Can you introduce them to me at some point?¡±


    ¡°Sure, assuming we survive this.¡±


    Trace took the hint, zipped back up the bag, and refocused. ¡°Okay, so I¡¯m assuming you¡¯re going to use the Lexoya for targeting and then blast them away with the 700?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the basic idea, yeah.¡±


    ¡°Alright, well, let¡¯s see how stupid of an idea this really is.¡±


    They both crawled back over to the edge and tipped their barrels over into the darkness. Monroe kept both of his as close together as possible to prevent any extra deviation from occurring. Trace, for his part, simply did what he could to match the man¡¯s movements.


    It was a mess, an absolutely jerky, annoying mess. Despite that, they slowly found a measure of success. It wasn¡¯t large, but it was enough to keep the corpo agents below at least partially distracted. Which worked in their favor.


    They were fighting against the rushing water, the bullets from above, the occasional chunk of tossed concrete from within the basement by the bear, and the bear itself whenever one actually got far enough inside.


    The squad of agents was finding themselves in more trouble than they had initially counted on when they came to this location.


    The bullets in Monroe¡¯s ridiculously oversized revolver punted them back into the sewer whenever they hit them dead on. The heavy ammo didn¡¯t appear to be going through their armor, though Trace had no doubt they were still feeling the punishing blows. Whenever the rounds would hit something a little less protected, well, limbs had a habit of partially disintegrating.


    ¡°We are going to be in so much trouble if any of them survive this little encounter,¡± Monroe grunted, as he slapped a quick loader into the back of his open revolver.


    ¡°Tell me something I don¡¯t already know!¡± Trace snarled, his wrist aching from the abuse of firing the pistol at such an odd angle. ¡°They attacked us first, anyway. It¡¯s my fracking basement!¡±


    Above them, the doors to the warehouse itself shuddered as something heavy ran into them.


    The two shared a glance and cursed as Trace leaped to his feet and hit the button to raise the platform.

 Chapter 52

    ¡°What are the odds those doors are going to hold?¡± Trace asked as the platform settled into place on the main floor. Unlike Monroe, who was carrying an absolutely massive gun as his primary weapon, all Trace had was his regular assault rifle. It was a good gun, but it wasn¡¯t some vehicle destroyer.


    ¡°Pretty good, I¡¯d say, but they can still get in through the holes in the roof.¡±


    The warehouse doors shuddered and squealed. The metal wheels holding them on the tracks at the bottom and the top were straining as the reinforced metal of the massive loading doors otherwise shrugged off the impacts. They were so over-built that Trace hadn¡¯t even needed to look at them, unlike the roof or the regular door.


    ¡°Do you want to handle the roof? I¡¯ll take the second entrance and finish what¡¯s going on down in the basement. Leave a couple injured but alive and unable to leave if possible. I want answers.¡±


    Monroe checked his rifle and nodded. ¡°You got it. Be careful down there.¡±


    ¡°You too,¡± Trace told him as he took in the sight of the gun and the magazine that had just been slipped into place. The cartridges weren¡¯t quite as large as the ones used in their revolvers, but they weren¡¯t much smaller either. ¡°What kind of rifle is that? I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever seen one like it before.¡±


    Monroe racked the slide and ran a hand along the length of the rifle¡¯s short barrel. ¡°I¡¯d be surprised if you had. It¡¯s a heavy rifle made as a joint effort between Colter and Koltech. It¡¯s the ¡®Techter .650¡¯. and it¡¯s almost as mean as our revolvers.¡±


    ¡°Do they come in normal person size?¡±


    The large man laughed and shook his head, already jogging toward the ladder that would take him to the roof.


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t joking,¡± Trace muttered as he headed for the apartment. ¡°I want one of those things.¡±


    Inside, he rushed past Deckard and into the closest, where he opened the door for the basement stairs. There was a second door at the bottom of the stairs that he had never been able to open due to the water pressure. Over the years, some water had seeped in around the edges, creating a puddle, but overall, the door had maintained a remarkably good seal against the encroaching moisture.


    Now he was about to ruin that.


    Trace twisted the handle and threw all of his weight against the door, feeling it barely budge. A little more water came in through a few places, but that was it. He tried again, achieving the same result, a few more leaks, but nothing else to show for his efforts.


    The pressure from the water on the other side was simply too great. Until there was enough water on this side to equalize the pressure, the door wasn¡¯t going to open.


    Grumbling to himself for wasting time, Trace raced back up the stairs and back out into the warehouse and onto the elevator platform. Firing from above like before was how it would have to be. He just wouldn¡¯t be able to use the assault rifle still, and hopefully, his wrist could withstand the abuse. His second perk might be called ¡®Steady Hands 1¡¯, but the ability to reduce recoil was really making a difference at the moment.


    He lowered the platform to around the same height as before and slid to a different edge from before.


    The area below had fallen quiet.


    Trace trained his flashlight down below and used the scope on his K-10 to look around. The water level had fallen significantly to the point where it was no longer creating a vortex around the opening the bear had created. Now that the waterline was naturally well below the top of that opening, it was simply gushing out instead. There was still plenty of pressure behind all the water, but the force had been lessened some.


    He could see a couple of corpo agents peeking around the edges of the opening, content to stay in the sewer for the moment. Looking around the water-filled basement, he was soon able to see why.


    The corporation created aberration bear had been injured. Oddly enough, it was leaning against the wall, near where the door leading up to the apartment was. The sight made him doubly glad that he had been unable to get the door open.


    For the first time, he was able to get a clear look at the thing, and he found himself filled with equal parts awe and revulsion. Whichever corporation had done this to the poor beast had gone above and beyond in what they did to it. The legs were natural, but there were extra veins and arteries being run outside of its body to enhance its muscles. Both of its arms -if that was even the right term when it came to something like a bear- had been replaced with cyberware versions and synth skin.


    Then there was its neck and head. The neck had received a similar treatment to its legs, though the tubes here had been covered in synth skin that had mostly been torn off. The head thankfully remained mostly organic, with only the jaw and upper mouth being switched out for something more cybernetic and metallic in nature.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    It truly was an aberration, just not the kind typically found from the irradiated zones. Those ones weren¡¯t quite so cybernetically modified in nature.


    Trace flicked the scope to the opening to check on the corpo agents and then zoomed back in on the bear. It was definitely injured. There were streams of blood running from multiple holes in its body. Yet, the bear didn¡¯t seem to care all that much. If anything, it looked as though it was simply taking the chance to rest, and nothing more.


    Its skin hung loose on its frame as though they had been starving it.


    Looking between the two groups, Trace wasn¡¯t sure which one he wanted to win. He had no idea why the bear was even in his basement! It seemed like a little too much of a coincidence to him that he would be the one hired to track it, and that it would also then show up at his home. The job part he could understand, Revlock¡¯s reasoning for hiring him, had, and still did make sense. The bear just happening to show up at his place though was a little too far.


    Something else was going on, and he needed to know what it was.


    Not that he was likely to receive any answers from a bear that couldn¡¯t talk, or a bunch from a corpo hit squad. He might have better luck just searching their bodies for clues, unless Monroe had better luck on the roof, of course. One could always hope.


    Trace turned his attention away from the bear for the moment and focused on the agents hiding in the sewer entrance. There were two options that he could pursue at the moment. Taking careful aim and open fire on them. Using that method, he might hit one of them before the rest hid again. After all, they had time. The other was using some of the remaining grenades he still had clipped to his bag.


    They didn¡¯t explode right away, so he might get lucky. He hadn¡¯t used them until recently, so he didn¡¯t really know how long their timers were and didn¡¯t dare cook off the timer after pulling the pin either.


    All he could do was combine the two and hope for the best.


    He pulled the pin on the first one and dropped it over the edge and into the water. It was carried toward the opening and after only a couple of seconds; it was gone.


    Trace counted in his head, and after five seconds, the grenade finally went off. By then, it had entered the sewer pipe and was nowhere near the agents. It had only stayed in the basement for maybe two or three seconds. The force created by the water leaving through the opening had pulled it out too quickly.


    At least now he had an idea of how long he could hold it for.


    There were three grenades left on his bag. Trace unclipped the next one and pulled the pin, holding it for a two-count before dropping it. He decided to play it a little safe, just in case he was off in some way.


    The K-10 snapped into the position as the ribbed-for-their-pleasure, metal pineapple went through the opening. A second later, it exploded right behind them. The force of the explosion, mixed with their already shaky foot-placements ensured they needed to step into view as they fought to regain their balance.


    Trace shot the first one in the head, and then quickly shifted to body shots as he didn¡¯t have the time to precisely aim. He wasn¡¯t good enough yet to be sure of his aim whenever he needed to hurry.


    He blasted through the entire magazine of the K-10, grateful for its extended barrel and the accuracy that came with it. His aim might not be quite up to par, but at least it hadn¡¯t suffered because of the distance and his choice of guns.


    He spotted six corpo agents on the ground in the sewer pipe. Only the one he had hit in the head was dead, while all the rest were alive, but injured. The 10mm ammo had a punch to it that they were all feeling at the moment.


    Two uninjured agents were in the process of pulling the six out of his area of visibility. That meant there were eight down there in total at the moment, and one had been eliminated. Monroe and the bear had taken out a few as well before.


    Just how many people had this corporation sent to take down this bear originally?


    Speaking of, Trace turned his scope and flashlight on the aberration and felt his brows pinch together as he frowned.


    The way its skin hung off its body was noticeably looser than it had been a few minutes earlier. Along with that, he also noticed that the wounds it had received were completely gone.


    The bear pushed off the wall it had been using to support itself, and after a couple of shaky steps, charged the hole.


    There was so much going on here that Trace didn¡¯t like, and the way the bear had healed itself at the expense of its body was definitely near the top. The corporations didn¡¯t have access to technology that was capable of something like that.


    Or at least, he hadn¡¯t thought they did. It was becoming increasingly obvious to him that what he knew was exactly what the corporations wanted him to know and nothing more. They had access to and had developed tech far beyond what was commercially available. If he wanted to compete with them, he was going to need to play scavenger on the agents¡¯ bodies and hope something good turned up.


    Down below, he watched the bear tear into what remained of the unsuspecting corpo hit-squad. With one dead, and five still on the ground groaning in pain, it was easy for the bear to tear into them. The cyberware arms it had been given included plasma-edged claws that tore through the bodies of anything unfortunate enough to stand in its way.


    The aberration had managed to activate the claws in its rage-induced rush. As soon as it took a second to search for a new target with a slightly calmer head, the plasma function flickered and died. It was too much to hope that a beast driven largely by instincts would be able to activate them at will.


    Not that it made much of a difference to the bear. It had lived all its natural life with regular claws. What did it care whether they glowed or not?


    The guns of the two remaining uninjured agents spat out a constant staccato as they were flicked into full-auto mode and let loose at close range.


    From his position above and inside the basement, Trace was only able to catch a portion of what was happening inside the sewer pipe. None of it looked good though for either side.


    The bear was bleeding heavily. Its newly reduced mass was much less effective at stopping bullets than before. The agents on the ground were simply getting stepped on and smashed into paste, while it tried to take down the remaining mobile corpo agent.


    Trace inched closer to the ledge and used both hands to steady the pistol as he zoomed in as much as possible. He had swapped in a fresh magazine and was good to go, now all he needed was the chance.

 Chapter 53

    Trace stood up as he heard Monroe stop firing his cannon of a rifle up on the roof. Hitting the lever, he sent the platform the few feet back up to the main floor. At the top, he spotted Monroe coming back down the ladder. The barrel of his rifle was smoking as it hung from his back.


    ¡°Everything go alright up there?¡± Trace called out.


    The large man nodded and pointed to the warehouse doors as he jumped the last few feet of the ladder to land with a heavy thump on the concrete floor. ¡°I wasn¡¯t able to leave any alive. I tried, but they tried calling for help each time.¡±


    Trace nodded. That was something he hadn¡¯t even thought of when he had made the initial request. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s bring everything inside the warehouse and down into the basement. Hopefully, a few feet of concrete will cut out any trackers they might have.¡± He¡¯d worry about what to tell anyone that came looking for them later.


    There would be someone as well, after all, even if they weren¡¯t being tracked, which was unlikely, they were still known to have come to his warehouse. Someone would show up with questions, and he¡¯d need to have a story for them when that happened.


    Working as quickly as they could, they dragged the bodies into the warehouse and onto the elevator. Each one had a fist-sized hole punched through their body in some location. For a couple, it was where their armor had clearly failed. Then there were the ones with annihilated pelvises, destroyed shoulders, or the two that were missing their entire heads.


    It was a grizzly, messy business.


    After the bodies, they gathered up all the equipment, and then finally drove the vehicle they had arrived in inside the warehouse. It was some sort of personnel carrier, with six wheels and armor plating. It had powerful motors and was roomy inside, but otherwise pretty basic. They parked it on the elevator platform with the bodies and then each grabbed a hose connected to the pumps in the basement.


    Together, they washed the blood away from the front of the warehouse, removing any lingering evidence that might have existed. Just for good measure, they washed down every surface they could see with the heavy flow of water.


    Riding the elevator down into the dark basement, Monroe had the good sense to turn the lights on the personnel carrier on. It had two different light bars attached to it, one on the bumper and one on the roof, in addition to the normal bright headlights, that gave off an enormous amount of illumination.


    Trace had never been this far down in the basement before, as it had previously been underwater. This was his first real glimpse of the space, and what he was seeing was absolutely disgusting.


    The water, which should have been mostly rainwater, had taken on a distinctly acidic quality. The concrete was rife with pitting, along with all the other dirt and grime that had made its way down over the years.


    With the help of the bright light, they could clearly see everywhere the bear had stepped, as part of the concrete had crumbled away beneath its paws. The pitting had weakened and destroyed the top layer, but the layer beneath that seemed to be fine. He would still need to level the floor and get rid of all the old, ruined concrete though.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe we used to drink that stuff,¡± Monroe muttered.


    ¡°I tried some water a while back,¡± Trace told him as he stopped the elevator a few feet above the floor. ¡°It was absolutely foul tasting, gag-inducing stuff, and film it left on my tongue.¡± He shivered at the memory. ¡°I can only hope it used to be different. Even filters don¡¯t seem to make a difference from what I hear.¡±


    ¡°Not the filters we have access to, anyway,¡± Monroe said darkly. He kicked one of the bodies next to their feet. ¡°When you get a chance, take a look at the tech these guys are packing. It makes even the highest-end stuff on the market look a few generations old.¡±


    ¡°Why does it not surprise me that the corporations are hoarding all of the really good stuff to themselves? Though, if I¡¯m being honest, I already kind of had a clue that might be the case when I saw the bear. It was healing itself mid-battle,¡± Trace lowered the platform to the point where they were just barely above the water and hopped off. ¡°Granted, it seemed to be cannibalizing itself to do it, but still, I¡¯ve never heard of them having that sort of tech before I saw it.¡±


    The water had gone down to where it was now just barely above his calves. In maybe another ten minutes or so, the rest of the water would be gone.


    He let the water pull him toward the hole in the wall, feeling the brittle concrete crunch under every step he took. It was an odd sensation, but also strangely pleasurable in a way he couldn¡¯t quite describe.


    At the opening, he had Monroe lower him down into the sewer pipe. He gathered everyone visible and passed them up one at a time, along with all their equipment. He left the bear for last, while he went farther down the pipe to look for anything or anyone that had gotten washed away.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    The entire process took over an hour by the time he was ready to attempt passing the bear up to Monroe. He still couldn¡¯t be sure he had gotten everyone or everything, but he certainly thought he had. The bear might have lost a significant amount of fat during its fight there at the end. However, it was still a behemoth of an animal. That was discounting the mass of cyberware they had grafted onto the beast as well.


    Trace would be impressed with himself if he even managed to so much as lift its paw.


    It was at that point that Monroe jumped down and joined him in the sewer pipe.


    The water had mostly finished draining from the basement by that point, with only a trickle of the liquid still coming out.


    ¡°I turned off the pumps you were using. I assume you didn¡¯t want to burn them out.¡± Monroe told him as they each grabbed a wet, stinky bear arm.


    ¡°Thanks. As long as they¡¯re still in working condition, I might be able to sell them to someone,¡± Trace grunted as they slid the uncooperative slab of annoying musk across the ground a few inches at a time. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you¡¯re strong enough to just toss this thing through the hole it created, are you?¡±


    The dark man laughed. ¡°Even if I was, I doubt the joint could handle that sort of abuse. There would also be the need to worry about how to properly set my body to throw something so much heavier than myself.¡±


    ¡°Well, I have some rope we can use to haul it up. I doubt if they¡¯re rated for extra-double-O-fat though.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re barely inching this thing across the ground; you honestly think we can lift it into the air?¡± Monroe asked in disbelief.


    ¡°Nah, I have another idea for that, but we¡¯ll need something long and rated to carry this chonker of a heavyweight here. Do you have anything in Black Betty that might be useful?¡±


    Monroe let go of the arm with a grimace, the wet oily musk already starting to seep into him. ¡°You know what? I actually just might. I keep some chains and steel braided rope in the back for different projects. We could use that.¡±


    ¡°Good, let¡¯s lower the platform down the rest of the way, and take everything off it. Then we¡¯ll go up and get those.¡±


    By the time they had hooked up the chains and steel cable to the platform and then wound it around the bear, they were both getting tired. It was nighttime, and they had been going for hours, ever since the bear decided the basement needed a new entrance earlier.


    Climbing back up through the hole, Trace tiredly trudged over to the platform and sent it ascending to the main floor above. The chains and cable tightened, and then, with a grinding noise as it dug into the concrete, it began to drag the aberration¡¯s body back into the basement.


    He let it go until Monroe called out to him, and then slowly lowered the elevator back down. Monroe needed the reduced speed to gather up the chain and cable and keep it from bunching up underneath the platform.


    Finally, it hit the ground with a thud, and Trace felt his legs give out as he just let himself stare up at the roof far above him.


    ¡°I am so tired right now,¡± He complained weakly. ¡°I¡¯ve been getting better recently since I started eating better and building more muscle, but shizz, I have no endurance.¡±


    ¡°Nah, you did fine,¡± Monroe said as he sat down next to him with a relieved groan. ¡°I¡¯m pretty wiped as well, and I like to think I have pretty decent endurance.¡±


    Trace rolled over a minute later to look at all the bodies on the floor in despair. The basement was cold, but he didn¡¯t think it was cold enough to keep all the cyberware connections from going bad. There was a reason scavs froze everything they took out of a person. The cold was the easiest way to prevent the cybernetic connections from degrading, which tended to be a permanent problem or at least a very costly issue to fix.


    It took someone who was actually trained in working on cyberware like Sevorah, or possibly Ko, to properly extract them without needing to do that. Even then, they still stored them properly.


    ¡°You said they had good tech in them?¡± He muttered tiredly.


    ¡°Their weapons, yeah, and the arms I saw were beyond impressive.¡± Monroe followed his eyesight. ¡°You aren¡¯t thinking of doing a little scavenging, are you?¡±


    Trace scowled at the term. ¡°They attacked us first! It¡¯s not the same thing in the slightest. Besides, they¡¯re already dead. It¡¯s not like they need it anymore.¡±


    ¡°Fine, whatever, no need to convince me on this one. They¡¯re corpo scum, frack them, and the corporation that sent them. How are you going to manage it though? I don¡¯t exactly see a ton of freezers around here.¡±


    ¡°Hopefully, it won¡¯t be me that does the work, but a professional.¡± He sat up and yawned. ¡°I¡¯m going to get my truck and bring it down here. Can you get started on stripping these guys down to their underwear? I don¡¯t want to risk bringing a tracker not in their cyberware to wherever we get sent.¡±


    Monroe heaved himself up with a nod. ¡°See if you can dig up something that¡¯ll wake us up. If you don¡¯t have anything, I think I have a couple of Max-Energies left in the front of the van. You might want to check for visitors while you are up there as well. Someone should have come by to check on one of these teams by now. Corpo hit squads don¡¯t typically vanish without someone coming to check out why. Even if it¡¯s just a drone, I would have expected something to have made an appearance by now.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll check it out,¡± He agreed, sending the platform up to the main floor of the warehouse.


    Trace cycled through the various modes of his eyes, looking for any heat signatures, radio waves, or network connections that shouldn¡¯t be there. There was nothing. That didn¡¯t mean there hadn¡¯t been anything there watching them though, only that there wasn¡¯t anything there at the moment.


    He went to the regular door of the warehouse and then repeated the process. Out there he found a drone floating around. It was switching between the area where the personnel carrier had been parked and the road.


    Judging by how lost it was acting, Trace was hopeful that whoever was in control of it hadn¡¯t thought to fly it through one of the holes in the roof after all.


    He put a message together with all the details he could think of and then sent it off to Ko.


    After that, he grabbed the cans of Max-Energy from Monroe¡¯s van, along with a tarp he spotted in the back. They needed something to hide the bodies from view.


    Ko replied just as he was moving the truck onto the platform.


    ¡®Sevorah says she¡¯ll help. We¡¯ll do the work there though. Bring your truck here, so we can load up some equipment into the back of it. She wants to see what they did for herself.¡¯


    Trace could feel the unmentioned threat at the end of the message. If he had been lying in any way, his access to Sevorah, and likely Ko, would be cut off.

 Chapter 54

    Monroe turned off the lights on the personnel carrier and gulped down his energy drink as they rode the elevator back up. ¡°So, we¡¯re bringing some of her equipment here?¡±


    Trace nodded as he drove the truck over to the van and stopped. ¡°That¡¯s what Ko told me, yeah.¡±


    ¡°Not sure if that¡¯s a good thing or a bad thing.¡±


    ¡°Me neither,¡± Trace agreed.


    ¡°You realize you no longer have enough metal, right?¡± The welder asked him as they quickly packed the chain and cable back into his van. ¡°You¡¯re going to need a whole heap more if I¡¯m going to put any kind of door or seal over that opening down there.¡±


    Trace groaned as they jumped back into the truck and hit the button for the warehouse doors. ¡°I¡¯ve been getting my metal from the junkyard. I can¡¯t go back there for a few weeks. All the street-meats have taken over the place at the moment.¡±


    ¡°There are other junkyards¡­¡±


    ¡°But none that I¡¯m familiar with or that are quite as close. That¡¯s the one I¡¯ve always gone to, ever since I was a kid.¡± He looked out at the glowing city as the warehouse doors closed behind them. The drone was nowhere in sight. ¡°I¡¯ll figure something out. No matter what, we need to get that hole plugged.¡±


    ***


    Sevorah was glaring at Trace the entire time they loaded equipment into the back of his truck. All of it was older items that she kept as backups in case any of her newer equipment failed at the wrong time. There was also a deep chest freezer that they had to strap on to the tailgate to ensure it fully fit.


    ¡°Did you kill her pet or something?¡± Monroe asked once they were on their way back to the warehouse. ¡°I mean, I hate scavs as much as the next person, but even I¡¯m willing to do this.¡±


    ¡°Who can say with her? Sometimes it seems like she is alright with me, and others it¡¯s like she hates my guts.¡± Trace slowed to turn onto the road that would take them to his warehouse. ¡°She¡¯s protective of Ko, and I understand that, but I also think she jumps to conclusions far too easily.¡±


    Sevorah stayed close behind them as they neared the warehouse. Her small car barely took up any room on the road.


    Trace flicked through a few of his eye¡¯s sensor modes as they waited for the warehouse doors to open. There was still no sign of the drone from earlier. It looked as though it had left the area.


    He parked the truck right on the lift and as soon as Ko and Sevorah were in position; he began lowering it down. After it touched the bottom, he drove the truck off the platform and sent the elevator back up. Just in case that drone was still around, he wasn¡¯t going to leave any sort of opening in the floor that it could easily fly through.


    Monroe jogged over to the personnel carrier and turned on all the lights. The extra light revealed the basement in all its glory to the two newcomers.


    The sight of all the extra light jogged Trace¡¯s memory loose, and he tapped the button to turn on the light bar on the roof of the truck. Even more light lit up the basement, leaving almost no shadows left for anything to hide in.


    He rather wished there more shadows honestly. There was so much grime and other nastiness everywhere that the mere thought of cleaning the place was enough to give him nightmares.


    Sevorah and Ko had promptly chosen different targets to inspect as soon as the lights came on.


    The trained mender had gone for the reason why they had been called there and was inspecting the agents.


    Ko, on the other hand, was more interested in the bear.


    Both of them were finding items they found interesting, just in different ways. The agents were indeed packing some seriously advanced cyberware. The insides of the bear were an absolute mess. The tech that had been shoved inside it was pretty advanced. What really drew her attention though, was how everything had been grafted to the poor beast.


    It was obvious that the bear had been an experiment right from the start. The way the arms had been grafted on was done with far more care and precision than the extra muscle and tubes that had been jammed into its legs. The connections there were little more than amateur hack jobs in comparison.


    The real discovery though, had her frantically waving Trace over. She had just cut open the bear¡¯s chest and found something beyond unexpected. Pooled around its various bullet wounds were several, now inert, very recognizable silver metallic puddles.


    ¡°I knew something was going on with it when I saw it healing, but how is this possible? Meredith banned all research into nanites years ago. We only have ours because we got them from Deckard and her.¡± He hissed softly enough that Monroe and Sevorah had no chance of overhearing.


    ¡°You said it was an experimental corpo aberration.¡± She bit the inside of her cheek and hesitated. ¡°Maybe it was just a regular aberration first, before becoming some corporation¡¯s experiment.¡±The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    ¡°You think the nanites are what created the aberrations?¡± Trace asked pointedly. It was in line with the thoughts that he had already been having regarding the nature of the irradiated zones. There was something else going on there.


    Ko nodded. ¡°They would need to be different from the ones we have, more powerful in some ways, and limited in others. It¡¯s the only way the corporations would be allowed to get their hands on them and do experiments with nanites. Even then, I expect the steel goddess has put endless restrictions on them.¡±


    ¡°If they are allowed to run experiments on beings with nanites inside them. Imagine what they would do if they ever discovered the two of us existed, or Deckard, for that matter.¡±


    She swallowed and slowly nodded. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t waste any more time here. The connections on these parts won¡¯t keep for much longer if we want to try and save them.¡±


    Ko hurried over to the truck and grabbed some more tools.


    Trace helped Monroe unload the freezer and placed it by the door that hid the stairs leading up into the apartment.


    All the weapons and clothes they gathered together and stored in the back of the personnel carrier for the moment. There was no reason to leave it all sitting out in the nasty, damp, grime-filled basement.


    At the last second, Trace snagged a rifle that had been broken by the bear and placed it in the truck¡¯s cab to look at later. He had never seen one that was so filled with tech before. Even the ammo it fired was different from normal.


    The two menders worked for hours, taking apart the agents that had been involved in the attack on the bear and the warehouse.


    Sevorah prioritized getting several of each item inside the freezer, rather than going for complete disassembly. They had over twenty-two people spread across the floor of the basement. All of them had the same advanced model, NetConnect, which she made sure to grab a dozen of. There would need to be some experimentation involved before they could be fitted into anyone.


    All of them had advanced cyberware eyes that she hadn¡¯t seen on the market as well. They weren¡¯t all the same model either, but five different versions, so they all had to be carefully extracted. Then there were the legs, arms, and various internal cyberware components. The latter could be saved for later, as she wouldn¡¯t risk reusing any of them. While generic models did exist, that could fit anyone, that wasn¡¯t what these were. These were completely custom units that wouldn¡¯t fit or work for anyone else.


    All they were good for was being studied and learned from, nothing more.


    Even the legs and arms were a little bit of a crapshoot. No one wanted one arm or leg to be longer than the other, after all. Anyone who used these parts would have to accept the pair, and not just one. Which was a problem if they had only lost one arm. Asking her to remove the other one, simply so they could have a matching pair of cyberware arms, was just asking for more pressure to be put on their mind.


    Of course, that didn¡¯t stop her from grabbing what she could. They were simply of a lower priority as a result.


    Everything that didn¡¯t fit in the freezer went into the truck bed to be transported to the clinic. The connections would be dead by then, so they could never be installed in another person, but she had another use for them. Pieces for her research.


    It was nearly three in the morning when they finished working. Each of their disposable aprons and gloves had long since become covered in blood and gore.


    With no better option at the moment, each of the bodies was tossed down into the sewer pipe and then dragged a short distance away from the opening. With any luck, one of the many things that lived in the sewers would dispose of them for Trace.


    The thought of those things getting inside his basement was exactly why he needed that hole blocked as quickly as possible.


    Wearily, Trace hit the button on the wall that would call down the lift, only for his finger to go straight through it. He had used up everything the panel had left in it earlier, just sending the platform back up.


    With a tired grunt, he trudged over to the door and opened it. Several inches of water splashed out onto his boots.


    With each step up, his boots squelched, the sound tugging at his nerves. It was just one more thing in what had already proven to be an exceedingly frustrating, shizz-filled day. He was beyond tired, and all he really wanted to do at the moment was fall into bed.


    He couldn¡¯t do that though, not yet at least. There were still a few more things that needed to be done.


    One of them was definitely getting himself clean underneath the sani-spray. If that was even possible. That could wait until the others had left though.


    Right now, he had an idea of how to block the opening down below for a little while, at least. Then everyone could come up on the lift and leave.


    When Trace had been initially setting up the area in front of his apartment, he had bought four large tables. However, the way he had set them up meant he was really only using three. The other had been placed on the side of the apartment structure, where it had been partially forgotten about.


    He quickly cleared off the few miscellaneous items he had stacked on it during the last week or so and tiredly dragged it over to the elevator.


    A few minutes later, with Monroe¡¯s help, it was on its side in front of the hole with the personnel carrier¡¯s bumper pressed right up against it. The hole was by no means fully blocked by the table, but it was enough that no one should be able to easily slide inside for the moment. Not without destroying the table, in any case.


    With that task completed, everyone took the lift up to the main floor of the warehouse, alongside his truck, which Trace left parked there for now. Since the connections were already dead, he would bring everything over to the clinic in the morning after he got some sleep.


    They took a minute to cover it all with the tarp he had found earlier and then headed straight for the sani-spray.


    ¡°We¡¯ll talk when you drop those off in the morning. Take a few minutes to go through the modules and other items you found before coming over. I want to know more about why this little event of yours happened.¡± She poked him in the chest. ¡°Make sure you find some satisfactory answers.¡±


    Ko wearily waved goodbye as she climbed inside the mender¡¯s small car and together, they drove off as soon as the warehouse doors were open wide enough.


    ¡°Thanks for sticking around,¡± Trace told Monroe as he climbed into Black Betty.


    The big man cracked his neck and relaxed into the driver¡¯s seat. ¡°If this is what you meant by stripping a place of everything of value, I might have to rethink this deal.¡± He winked at Trace.


    ¡°Ha ha, you¡¯re really funny. No, seriously though, if their stuff wasn¡¯t so much better than ours, and we didn¡¯t need to figure out what was going on, I wouldn¡¯t have done this.¡±


    Monroe yawned and nodded. ¡°I know. Ko told me about the two scav dens you¡¯ve already taken out on your own. Someone who does that, by themselves, doesn¡¯t suddenly become one themselves. Anyway, night, I¡¯ll see you in a few hours to get more done on the roof.¡±

 Chapter 55

    By the time the morning rolled around, Trace felt as though he had only gotten two hours of sleep. Which honestly wasn¡¯t far off. After everyone had left, he had taken some time to go through the information on a couple of the data prisms. It only took a few minutes of that for his mind to start protesting that it was too tired to continue. He had left the rest plugged into the desk computer for Deckard to go through.


    He rolled out of bed, the notification in the corner of his vision springing into view and then vanishing almost as quickly. The progress they had made on his skeletal and muscular system was negligible due to how little sleep he¡¯d gotten. They were constantly working on both items, but due to the extreme nature of the actual repairs, they could only be done when he was sleeping.


    Looking over at the shorter of the shelves, he saw that Deckard was sleeping. However, there was a document open and waiting for him on the screen of the computer.


    Standing over it, while he brushed his teeth, he read through all the notes Deckard had made for him.


    There had only been a handful of data prisms, but Deckard had done deep dives into each one. Going through all the files and then checking for ghost-images of past files.


    It used to be in the old days that you could recover something once it was deleted. That wasn¡¯t the case with data prisms. The way the media worked was simply too different. All you could retrieve was a ghost-image of what had once been there, and that was literally nothing more than a ghost of what the file had once looked like. Nothing more.


    It was useful in telling you the names of the files that had once been on the data prism, and that was it.


    Still, it was something that Trace wasn¡¯t capable of doing.


    Unfortunately, there was no mention of any corporation contained within the files that Deckard had found. Not that Trace had truly been expecting anything else. This was a corpo hit squad. They would be better trained than your average gangster. Putting any sort of incriminating evidence on their personal devices would be trained out of them right away. Even if it wasn¡¯t, he imagined there would be safeguards in place to erase any slipups as soon as they happened within the NetConnects they had been given.


    That was how he would have set them up anyway.


    Trace removed the data prisms and set them to the side. There were a few modules he could still go through, but those were read-only, not writeable. Unless they contained proprietary information from this mysterious corporation, they were no good either.


    The odds of that, however, were decent. There were seven of the modules -two more than the number of data prisms- and none of them had a nameplate of any kind. The normal location for one was also rounded off, and smaller than normal. It looked as though the housings were custom, which was a lot of work to do for off-the-shelf units.


    Carefully, he prepared a virtual sandbox environment around the port he was going to use and plugged in one of the modules.


    Distantly, he was aware of the module attempting to do something, but with his protections in place, it had failed to load. There was no application on his HUD. Whatever program was on the module was meant to load right away. He would need to look into it more later when he had more time.


    For the moment, he unloaded the module and pulled it out. Then proceeded to delete the virtual environment just for good measure. He put the modules in his bag for later and set about getting ready for the day.


    He still hadn¡¯t figured out a different solution to the problem of how he was going to procure some metal. Going to his normal junkyard while the street kids were in control just wasn¡¯t a viable answer for him. There were too many memories from his early days for that to be comfortable.


    That really only left Monroe¡¯s suggestion of going to one of the other junkyards in the city.


    There were only four junkyards in the city, period. One at each of the cardinal directions, if there had ever been any others, they had been moved and combined with one of those for at some point in the distant past.


    He liked the junkyard that was at the southern end of the city. It was the one he had grown up using and always been around.


    If he was going to go to another junkyard, then it would likely be the one on the eastern side. There used to be some military installations over in that area. They had all been torn out years before when the military in the area was disbanded. That junkyard ought to have plenty of good things he could bring back, assuming they would fit in the back of the truck.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Trace made sure he took a minute to top off Deckard¡¯s nutrient mix. Even now that he was awake, he was still burning through the stuff at a higher-than-normal pace.


    Opening his fridge, he grabbed a slightly suspect-looking burrito along with a couple of titanium marbles and then went out the door. He made sure each of his guns was fully loaded, and that he had several spare magazines for each as well. After what had happened the day before, he wasn¡¯t taking any chances.


    Until he discovered what was going on, he was in the dark. He had no idea if the bear showing up was the world¡¯s biggest coincidence, or something else entirely. All he knew was that he wanted to be prepared.


    Regardless, he had somewhere to be.


    Getting into his truck, he sent off a quick message to Ko, letting her know that he was on his way. They had loaded some of the mender¡¯s equipment into the back of the truck once they were done using it. The majority of it was still down below, simply due to a lack of room.


    Sevorah and Ko were both waiting for him when he arrived.


    Trace and Ko had taken their time to scan the various pieces into their cyberware upgrade database while they were working throughout the night. That meant now, they only needed to move the items into the clinic for Sevorah to inspect.


    The actual useable pieces would remain in the freezer in his basement until she was ready to take the next step with them. For now, she would spend her time taking these ones apart, and seeing what other protections they might have. It wouldn¡¯t do to install a new NetConnect or set of eyes and discover they couldn¡¯t be used due to some corporate lock that had been installed on them.


    With all of that done, he waved goodbye to the two and sped off. He had too much to get done that day, to spend extra time talking with them.


    Trace made sure to send a message to Monroe, letting him know where he was headed next. The welder could let himself inside the warehouse whenever he arrived.


    During his drive to the eastern junkyard, he saw more police cars out and about, patrolling the roads than he could remember ever seeing in recent memory. Along with them were many of what were clearly corpo vehicles.


    Just as Trace was pulling into the unfamiliar eastern junkyard, he received a call from Revlock.


    ¡°What did you step into?¡± The man asked him wearily.


    ¡°What are you talking about?¡± He kept his eyes on the road as he slowly dodged around piles of junk.


    This was one of the downsides of going to a new junkyard. He had no idea where anything was. With his usual one, he knew right where to go, for the metal, or the tech. Not that they were super strict about the placement, but in general, those were where the bulk of those items ended up.


    At this junkyard, he didn¡¯t even know if it was set up the same way, or if everything was just dumped wherever there was an open spot.


    ¡°You called me in a panic yesterday, remember? Then you cut the connection and never called me back. Very rude by the way. Anyway, I decided to go against the rules and looked into the situation some more.¡±


    ¡°And? What did you find?¡± Trace asked when the man took a deliberately long pause to drive up the tension.


    ¡°Not much. The initial job we worked was completely legit. There is no sign of them being involved. However, there was a third party who got involved once we tracked the target to the sewers. At that point, they contacted the original client and paid them to mark the job as completed.¡±


    Trace jammed on the brakes as he took that all in. ¡°It sounds to me like this third party got their hands on that message you sent the client.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what I was thinking as well. I¡¯ll keep looking into it for as long as I can, but I¡¯m expecting pushback. Any corporation that can shut down cameras like that and force a government entity to close a job early isn¡¯t something either of us wants to mess with.¡±


    Trace leaned his head back against the rest and stared blankly up at the ceiling of the truck. There was a lot to unpack there. Revlock had been doing him a massive favor by telling him what he did, especially at the end.


    It was the corporation that was responsible for turning off all the cameras on that section of the wall. Plus, the original job contract had come from the government, which he had already sort of guessed. It was the police who had screwed up. It made sense that someone in their organization would want to know what had actually happened.


    While that might not be the actual case, it was still confirmation that his thinking had been in the right direction.


    He sat there for a few minutes, reviewing everything he knew.


    A sharp rap on his window an untold number of minutes later shook him from his revelry. Monroe was standing beside his truck with a tired grin on his face.


    ¡°I figured I¡¯d find you out here, lost. Didn¡¯t think you¡¯d be napping though.¡±


    Trace flipped him off as he rolled down the window and hung his upper half out. ¡°Lost is right. My junkyard is organized. This place, at least as far as I can tell, is pure chaos.¡±


    The large man laughed. ¡°You just need to know where to look is all.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re familiar with this place, then?¡±


    He nodded. ¡°Maybe not to the extent that you are with the southern junkyard, but this is the one I tend to frequent the most. It¡¯s got some real gems hidden among its piles if you know where to look.¡±


    ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll let you lead. You wouldn¡¯t have come across a bank vault during your time exploring this place by any chance?¡±


    Monroe chuckled. ¡°Your truck wouldn¡¯t be able to carry some of the great things I¡¯ve found in this place. Yet another reason we should work toward getting that truck and trailer out of the badlands.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, we already have an agreement in place for that, and yesterday went a long way towards convincing me. Now, it¡¯s more a matter of whether we can stand being in each other¡¯s presence for a long enough time to complete the gig.¡± Trace cracked his neck. ¡°Speaking of which, before everything went down yesterday, I was going to tell you. We got a job from Stick-Point. It¡¯s about a drug operation out in the wastelands.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like an interesting job. Tell me the specifics while we load the metal. Either way, we need to get that hole in your basement patched before we leave to go and do it. Finishing the roof would probably be a good idea as well.¡± Monroe said after a moment¡¯s thought.


    ¡°You got it, now hop in.¡±

 Chapter 56

    Monroe wasn¡¯t kidding when he mentioned he had found some serious gems. After they loaded up the truck bed with all the metal it could handle, he had taken a few minutes to show Trace a couple of pieces. One of them was from one of the old military bases, but the other one was a buried shipping container. All the crap piled on top of it had kept it from decaying and rusting away with time.


    It was completely sealed off, with no way of gaining entry unless they wanted to cut their way in. Which Monroe didn¡¯t want to do for one specific reason. While the doors were blocked, he had gotten close enough to see that the original lock and tag were still on it. A tag marked from over a hundred years earlier during one of the World Wars.


    Whatever was inside it was bound to be interesting.


    All of those interesting goodies could wait until later. Right now, they had to get back to the warehouse and get it secured against intrusion.


    Trace finally bit into his burrito as he started driving back home. The slightly sour-smelling item had been cooking in the cab of his truck all day and hadn¡¯t done its smell any favors.


    As soon as he bit into it and swallowed, the notifications in the corner of his vision began scrolling down. They were slightly distracting, but he managed to keep the truck steady and in his lane. A minor miracle, considering how everyone else was driving.


    More or less, the little buggers were letting him know that the burrito was not fit for consumption and that he was an idiot. Despite that, he took another bite. Old habits died hard, and it was too ingrained in him not to waste food. It didn¡¯t matter that it had spoiled or that it tasted weird. The worst that would happen is he would spend a day or two feeling terrible, possibly hugging the toilet. At least that would have been the case before.


    Now the nanites were taking it all for fuel, so it didn¡¯t matter. As long as his tongue didn¡¯t rebel against something, then it seemed as though he could eat whatever he wanted. Not that he was particularly interested in trying to test that theory out.


    The tongue and your sense of smell had more control over your body than people tended to give them credit for. By the time the burrito was gone, his stomach had started to cramp. Physically, he wasn¡¯t suffering from the food. Mentally, the smell and taste had been too much.


    He rolled down his window and enjoyed some mostly fresh, though hot air, while he drove back.


    By the time he reached the warehouse, he had started to feel a little better and found Monroe already working on the roof.


    He parked it on the elevator and sent it on down into the darkness. At some point in the near future, he would need to get some new lights for the basement installed. First though, he needed to clean all the dirt and grime and get rid of the acid-eaten concrete.


    Well, actually, first he needed to look through the items they had left in the back of the personnel carrier. There had been so much going on before, and he had been so tired that he had barely registered what a lot of the items were.


    He drove the truck over to the hole they had temporarily plugged with the table and the other vehicle and parked it.


    Opening the back of the carrier, he saw a mess of items and immediately felt his enthusiasm for the project drop. They had just tossed everything in the night before, and it now made it seem more daunting than it actually was.


    After staring for a couple of moments, Trace reached in and got to work.


    The black unmarked uniforms all went on the hood of his truck. Each one spread out and stacked on top of the other. They all had areas that were damaged, but if you took apart the worst ones, then you would be able to fix most of them.


    Consequently, he noticed that the armor they had been wearing was somewhat different from person to person. Each piece had been slightly customized, not a lot, but in ways that mattered. They would have fit better and had better protection over certain areas. Two people had also been wearing armor meant for medium-weight arms fire. They were both full-body protective suits, not power armor, of course, those were far more expensive.


    Unfortunately, they had apparently arrived in the personnel carrier, as the suits both had large holes blasted through their chests. In fact, all eight of the people who had arrived that way had been eliminated in more or less the same manner. Save for the ones that were missing their heads.


    Monroe¡¯s rifle was an absolute beast.


    Still, he had more armor that he could now wear than before. The medium-weight suits were nice, but they were also too heavy for his liking. Both of those would be sold unless Monroe thought he could squeeze into one. None of the lightweight armor came in a complete suit, but he now had enough pieces to cover all of his body if he wished, save for the head. None of them had been wearing helmets.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    He moved onto the weapons.


    There was a dearth of knives, and swords spread across the back of the personnel carrier. Each and every one of them was ceramic coated, instead of the cheaper plasteel crap that everyone else bought. Not that these were much better, but they were definitely a step up. A couple of them were vibro-blades, which he set to the side, but all the rest were normal. There were no plasma-edged knives or swords.


    As far as he was concerned, all of those could be sold as well.


    Then there were the guns. This was where things got interesting. They were all unknown to him, and none of them had any markings that he could use to search for their information on the net.


    He had to physically pick each one up, and after interfacing with it, pull up its information. Finally, and from such an unlikely place, it seemed as though he might have gained a clue as to who had attacked them.


    They were all made by some corporation called Vinna-Kwoi. Granted, that wasn¡¯t exactly any sort of proof, however, it was enough to make him suspicious. They weren¡¯t even a weapons manufacturer that he had heard of before.


    Which after looking up who the corporation even was, he soon discovered why that was. They weren¡¯t a weapons manufacturer at all. There wasn¡¯t a single mention of them creating pistols, rifles, or other guns anywhere.


    As far as the world was concerned, Vinna-Kwoi was predominantly a pharmaceutical corporation. It had its hands in dozens of other industries, as most corporations did. However, weapons manufacturing was not one of them.


    Which made the small arsenal he now held all the more strange. Perhaps it was common for corporations to create their own variations of weapons for their agents? That was a possibility that he might have to consider. After all, they hadn¡¯t been afraid to put their name inside the weapon itself.


    Still, he had no way of knowing if they were the ones who had shown up here, or merely the ones who had supplied the weapons. It was another piece of the puzzle, but that was it.


    Setting that matter to the side for the moment, he continued inspecting the guns.


    Outside of the ones that had been destroyed, they each seemed to be quality pieces. They had solid construction, a tad on the heavy side for his liking, but they were made to take a beating and then keep on going. It was the same with the mods, these ones at least he recognized as being taken from their original housings and put into more solid, rugged versions.


    He would definitely be keeping the mods if for no other reason than so he could reuse those rugged housings at a later date. Most of the guns though¡­ just didn¡¯t seem like they were anything special for what he wanted. He would keep one of the assault rifles, and the same for the shotguns and pistols, but that was it. He didn¡¯t need a gun that could be carried in the open and unprotected through a sewer and still keep working. That wasn¡¯t the type of work he did, and if he ever did take that sort of job, then hopefully he would have the good sense to prepare the proper holster beforehand.


    That really only left him with the broken gun he had put in his truck the night before.


    Just as he was about to head over to it, Monroe called down from above. ¡°Trace, you down there? Send the lift on up, man. I tried calling you a couple of times.¡±


    He hurried over to the lift and received a couple of missed call alerts from Monroe, along with a message from Ko, when he got closer to it. That took a weight off his back. Anything not near the hole when the lift was down wasn¡¯t getting a signal of any kind. This also meant that while it was up, the basement was a total blackout zone.


    ¡°Sorry about that. It seems like the walls are thick enough down here that they block the signal unless I¡¯m almost right underneath the opening.¡±


    ¡°So, then last night?¡± Monroe asked once Black Betty was in position on the elevator.


    ¡°Can¡¯t say anything for certain obviously, however, we might have gotten lucky. Hopefully, whatever they used to signal the second team was the only signal that got out.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, I still don¡¯t like it, but it does make me feel a little better about everything,¡± Monroe muttered from behind the wheel of his van.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to send the lift back on up. Why don¡¯t you get moved into position?¡±


    In the short time it took Trace to hit the lever, hop off the lift, and then walk over to the opening, Monroe had already parked his van and moved the personnel carrier.


    As they lifted the table out of the way, both saw several fresh sets of gouges scratched into its surface.


    ¡°Huh, maybe Denver really does have crocodiles in its sewers.¡± The big man muttered to himself.


    Trace flicked on his flashlight and jumped down into the sewer pipe, his suppressed CD-10 pistol at the ready. Jogging down the pipe, he reached the spot where they had left the bodies and found it empty. There wasn¡¯t so much as a spot of blood left to be seen where they had been. Whoever had picked them all up had licked the disgusting place clean.


    It was undoubtedly the cleanest location in the entire sewer at the moment.


    Trace was a little tempted to spray some blood all over his basement and leave the door they were going to install open. Whatever did this should charge for its services.


    Monroe stopped behind him with a huff and raised a brow at the spotless location. ¡°I know cleaning services that would kill to get whatever did this on their payroll.¡±


    Trace snorted and shook his head, slapping the other man¡¯s shoulder as he turned. ¡°They¡¯d probably have to. Come on, let¡¯s get that door installed before whatever did this comes back. What¡¯s the plan there, anyway?¡±


    ¡°Every piece of bent rebar that is sticking outside of the concrete will get shortened and then get welded to a straight bar. That will provide some strength, but is more to keep someone from just pushing the door over and into the basement. From there, I¡¯ll weld flat steel to the bar, hiding it from sight. The door will get welded to that steel. Then on this side, we¡¯ll use this,¡± He held up a massive concrete drill. ¡°To install as many welding anchor points as possible without weakening the wall.¡±


    ¡°And then once it¡¯s all done, we fill in the gaps with wet cement?¡± Trace asked as they climbed back into the basement.


    ¡°That would be best, yeah. It¡¯s your place, kind of, so it¡¯s up to you. This is the bare minimum though, that needs to be done.¡±

 Chapter 57

    They had finished welding the initial version of the door in place when Trace remembered that he had gotten a message from Ko earlier. Luckily, she was just checking in, but he really needed to get better about checking those messages as soon as they came in. It was just not a habit he had ever established in his life. For the last few years, Stick-Point had been the only person he received messages from consistently.


    ¡°Did you want any of this armor or the weapons?¡± Trace asked Monroe, as they were packing all his equipment back into Black Betty.


    Monroe ignored all the armor. None of it would fit his massive frame. ¡°Are the swords any good?¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t know,¡± Trace replied honestly. ¡°I haven¡¯t done any training in them. This one is a vibro-blade, though.¡±


    The big man grunted in appreciation and grabbed that one, along with a shotgun. ¡°What are you going to do with the rest?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll keep a couple of pieces and most of the lightweight armor. Everything else will be sold, you¡¯ll get your cut.¡±


    ¡°Not worried about that. I just think they might be watching for someone doing exactly that is all.¡±


    Trace furrowed his brows in thought. ¡°Hmm, that is actually a good point. I guess for now, I¡¯ll just put all the extra items into the back of the personnel carrier for storage.¡±


    The vehicle had been moved over near the freezer unit, where the lights could still be effective. He had plans to come down and start cleaning the place soon. They had even lifted the freezer off the ground and placed it on blocks of metal so he could wash the area around it without worry.


    He had placed all the mods and the items he was keeping from agents in his truck earlier while Monroe was welding the door in place.


    Trace ran up the stairs, out of the apartment, and a moment later was on the lift, lowering it down so they could bring their vehicles up.


    ¡°How much more work do you have on the roof?¡± He asked as the elevator was taking them back to the main floor of the warehouse.


    ¡°Just general cleanup, and a few patches.¡±


    ¡°Do you think you can do that tomorrow? Then, once you are finished, we can start planning the job out in the wasteland?¡±


    ¡°That shouldn¡¯t be a problem. I¡¯ll be a little late getting here as I have a prior appointment to fix a few items for another person. After that, I¡¯ll be right over.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good. I¡¯ll see you tomorrow then.¡± Trace opened the warehouse doors and watched the van leave, closing them right afterward.


    His life had been so hectic lately, that just watching someone leave after a day¡¯s work felt satisfying to him now.


    He grabbed the broken tech-filled gun from the back seat of his truck and brought it into his apartment, along with everything else.


    Inside, he found Deckard awake and running a simulation on the server. ¡°Has everything been resolved?¡± He asked, splitting his attention between the ongoing task and the items Trace was bringing in. ¡°You seem to be acquiring quite the arsenal of weapons over there.¡±


    He looked at the weapons he had hanging on the wall and slowly nodded. A large portion of them had been taken from Pushman¡¯s apartment. However, he was slowly starting to scrounge up his own number of guns and knives as well. The main difference, of course, was that his were all whatever he picked up while on jobs. Pushman had actually bought and outfitted his guns.


    ¡°It¡¯s getting there for sure. Doesn¡¯t mean the quality is anything to speak about.¡± Most of what he had hanging up there could be sold. They were either doubles or lower quality than something else he had more recently picked up. ¡°In answer to your first question, who knows? I still can¡¯t figure out why that fracking aberration bear came here in the first place. We¡¯ve covered the hole it created for now, and as soon as I get the space cleaned, we can start using it. Even better is that it seems to be a no-signal zone.¡±


    ¡°That will truly be useful for when I begin working on additional hardware refinements,¡± Deckard said, his avatar grinning. ¡°Not to mention, we will soon need additional storage space if I am to use this 3D printer in any real capacity.¡±


    ¡°Have you almost got it running?¡± Trace wondered as he placed the broken gun on a small worktable near the door. He grabbed all his various tools and placed them in separate corners of the table. This was going to require far more than just a normal gun teardown.


    The avatar waved its hand back and forth. ¡°Somewhat. I have gotten it to work well for a few items. After that, buildup begins to appear within the printhead and the intake hopper. The modifications that have been made to it simply can¡¯t handle the sheer variety of items we are throwing at it. It was meant to dice blocks of mostly pure ore and create the wire used in the printer. What we are doing with it has a lot of excess filth involved. The lasers simply can¡¯t reach high-enough temperatures to destroy it all.¡±This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    ¡°Can we use some sort of cleaning product in-between a set number of uses?¡± Trace asked as he snagged the chair from in front of the computer and sat down to begin pulling apart the gun.


    ¡°I¡¯ll have to look into it. The cost involved and how corrosive they are will play an element as well.¡±


    ¡°Well, let me know. If nothing else, I can always deconstruct the items more. It will take more time, but if it helps¡­¡±


    ¡°That option is part of one of the scenarios I am running right now.¡±


    Trace nodded and focused on the project in front of him.


    The screwdriver was first, as he proceeded to unscrew each of the items that had been added on to its exterior for ruggedization. Each step of the way was accompanied by a photo that he could reference later, in case he ever got confused or lost. The pieces that made up the exterior were only the most obvious. However, a lot of work had been done to its insides as well.


    There was no power running through it for him to connect to as the claws from the bear had severed one of the main power connections.


    After pulling off the last of the extra exterior pieces, he set about working on the main exterior panel that ran along the length of the barrel and beneath it. The paneling was the least damaged there. Whereas the area directly behind it, where it had been hit, just above the trigger and the main grip had a severe gash in it.


    With any other rifle, he would have written it off completely due to all the damage around the barrel. The difference was this one didn¡¯t seem to use a traditional barrel assembly. In fact, when he ejected the magazine at the back, he found it full of what looked to be stainless steel rods. After some quick math, he figured out the magazine could hold fifty of the pointed rods.


    If that was the ammo, then it was no wonder the opening on the barrel was so narrow.


    He had never seen something like this before or even heard of a weapon similar to it. Then again, just a couple of years ago, he was nothing more than a mostly common street meat. The amount of information he had been able to absorb since managing to get an apartment was limited by his initial knowledge of what to look for. There was an entire world out there that he knew nothing about due to his poor upbringing.


    Bit by bit, Trace carefully removed the bent and twisted panels obscuring the interior from view. Every step of the way, he kept taking photos for when he tried to put it all back together and couldn¡¯t remember where something went.


    Each of the pieces went into a series of containers according to the section they had been removed from. His typical style was to keep pieces in order, and that wasn¡¯t going to change now.


    Finally, he was looking at an entirely naked side of a very tech-heavy rifle. Just being able to play with something like this was a joy for him. He couldn¡¯t quite understand what everything was, but his time in the enhanced teaching courses hadn¡¯t been wasted, either.


    The ¡®Enhanced Basic Electrical Engineering¡¯, combined with the ¡®Enhanced Basic Mechanical Engineering¡¯ courses, helped him to identify many of the individual parts. They, along with all of his own hard-earned knowledge, were enough of a foundation to tell him that he was looking at a railgun.


    The basic courses weren¡¯t advanced enough to tell him much more than that.


    However, the wonderful thing about fixing things is that you didn¡¯t actually need to know how everything worked. It helped, sure, but it wasn¡¯t required. In this case, since he had a firm foundation in the basics, he was able to isolate the problem areas beyond the obvious gashes.


    The torn cabling and destroyed ammo feeder tube would need to be repaired, or straight-up replaced. Beyond those items, and the other pieces of twisted metal, there were several leaking super-capacitors and a section of a controller-board that looked burned. He would need to remove the board and see what had caused the burn before he could make more judgements on that particular item.


    The super-capacitors were fairly easy to source and replace, and so was the cabling they had used to transfer power. The tubing and the board were the main issues, and he hadn¡¯t even gotten around to looking at the wireless energy-receiving unit either. Those capacitors would require a ton of power, which meant the receiving unit would need to be an absolute beast. He had never seen one so small before that could output so much power. If it was damaged, then this gun was no better than decoration.


    All he could do was work on one thing at a time, and with how powerful this gun promised to be. He desperately wanted to get it back up and running.


    Using a hammer and a screwdriver, he slowly worked out some of the bent edges on the case. With the worst offenders out of the way, he gently removed the broken feeding tube that connected the magazine to the barrel.


    All along the tube were tiny contact points where it connected to small super-capacitors of its own. The tube was a low-powered rail gun in its own right.


    Using his eyes, he scanned the tube and shook his head in frustration. There was no way he would be able to repair the tube. It had micro-fractures running all along its interior.


    He carefully retrieved the pieces from inside the case of the gun and placed them on the worktable while he thought.


    ¡°Hey, Deckard, is that printer still able to work on normal projects?¡± He asked the man after thinking the problem over for a bit.


    ¡°Yeah, none of its original functionality has been lost. Why, what do you need?¡±


    Trace sent him a copy of the scan he had created of the feeder tube. ¡°Do you think it could create a working replica of this without the obvious hole or micro-fractures?¡±


    ¡°Its height won¡¯t be a problem, as it will need to be printed tube-up.¡± Deckard was silent for a moment as he ran through a few mental calculations. ¡°Even if you gathered up all the fragments and pieces you found, I¡¯ll still need more just due to general loss and inefficiencies. It¡¯s possible. Want me to start it up?¡±


    ¡°Would you, please?¡± Trace asked with a grin, clutching the pieces tightly.


    This was why he had gotten the machine in the first place originally, and he was glad to know that he could still use it in that manner. Even if the method Deckard had come up with was far more useful and valuable to them.


    A few moments later, the 3D printer was spinning up and going through its initial checks. As soon as Deckard gave him the all-clear, he could place the pieces in the intake tray. Then he could start going through his various parts and see if he had any usable cabling and super-capacitors that matched the sizes needed.

 Chapter 58

    Trace had managed to find dozens of regular capacitors among his parts. It was from one of the boxes of components he had grabbed from the gang building that he managed to get lucky. It was full of super-capacitors that ran the gamut in size and capacity.


    Unfortunately, he still didn¡¯t have enough.


    There were four of them that had leaked out and two more that had bulges on the cap. The bulge signified that they were under pressure and about to leak.


    The box, while a complete miracle find, was still something made to consist of a mix of everything. It only had three of the specific super-capacitors that he needed. He would need to buy three more, and a couple of extra, just in case there was hidden damage in the others.


    Anything could happen when he powered it up for the first time.


    Trace desoldered each of the leaking super-capacitors and then did the same for the bulging ones. With them removed, he decided to not install the new ones and to instead leave the spots blank for the moment.


    From his box of parts, he had found a power cable that he could use to replace the one that had been destroyed by a claw. He placed that on the table next to the replacement super-capacitors and moved onto inspecting the burned controller-board.


    It took him a couple of minutes to unscrew and unplug everything from the board in question. Lifting it out carefully, he could feel how brittle it had become. The green sandwich board was peeling apart as the heat had destroyed whatever held the layers together.


    Hidden beneath it was the wireless energy-receiving unit that looked to be in perfect condition still. That was one less problem that he needed to worry about. Now that he knew where the controller-board had been placed, it was easy for him to figure out what had happened. When the power transfer cable had unexpectedly been cut, the energy had been partially dumped in the form of heat. The abnormal heat had then cooked the board, which meant he would need to take apart the opposite side of the weapon and check the controller-board on that side as well.


    He was going to do it anyway, but now it had become an absolute need.


    Holding the board up to the light, he looked it over as closely as possible to look for any other possible defects. While he was doing that, his eyes were scanning it and creating a 3D image of the controller-board along with all its connections and components.


    This particular sandwich board was toast. It couldn¡¯t be used anymore. Some of the components were still in decent condition, while others were completely melted.


    He didn¡¯t have the capability to repair something this far gone. Thankfully, with a complete 3D image, all the proper dimensions, and other information, it was possible to have other places make a new one for him. Which is what he planned to do in this case.


    The worrying thing is that after examining the board more closely, he noticed that there was older charring around its edges. That meant while this event might have been what caused it to finally overheat and destroy it, the controller-board had already been suffering from fairly extreme heat problems even before that. It would have eventually failed regardless.


    He could order a replacement board to be built along with as many components as possible. If he didn¡¯t do something about the heat, the wireless energy-receiving unit was generating, then this would simply happen again in the future.


    Carefully, he turned the rifle over and began removing all the pieces from that side. It was the same operation as he had done a little bit before, except this side had suffered a little less physical damage.


    Once everything was revealed, he saw two bulging super-capacitors, and nothing else. The controller-board had also been fried, and he took a scan of this one as well, noting the differences between the two.


    The two boards mirrored each other, and the differences matched that.


    Deckard had finished printing the tube a few minutes earlier, and they were just waiting for it to cool down.


    Trace would need to do some cleanup work on it, both inside and out, which he would need to be careful with. If he was overeager on any of it, then the fit would become an issue. The tube needed to be tight with the contact points for the super-capacitors in their proper place.


    He had just begun to look up companies that could create the sandwich board and also install the components for him when Monroe knocked on the door.


    ¡°You alright with Monroe knowing about you?¡± He asked Deckard.


    The man¡¯s avatar took on a thinking pose and slowly shook his head in the negative. ¡°Not yet. Possibly in the future, but I don¡¯t think the trust between you two is quite strong enough just yet.¡±Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Trace would have argued against that point, considering what the man had already done for him. However, it wasn¡¯t his decision to make. With a shrug, he stood, grabbed a couple of cold sodas, and walked out the door.


    Monroe was half-laying on top of a clean section of table, with his feet on the ground. He was staring up at the now dark roof, his forehead dripping with sweat. The inside of the warehouse was fairly cool, but it was starting to heat up.


    ¡°It is boiling out there,¡± He gasped out, as his shirt peeled wetly off the table as he sat up.


    Handing over the cold drink, Trace nodded. ¡°I knew I was forgetting something. I need to get some air-conditioning and heat pumps installed in the apartment and this place. I might be fine with just a fan during the summer, but winter will be absolutely brutal if I don¡¯t get something put in.¡±


    The welder rolled the cold can along his head and neck a couple of times before popping the tab and taking a swig. ¡°That¡¯s true. The multiple layers of metal will keep this place pretty cool.¡± He downed the rest of the soda and crumpled the can, placing it on the table next to him with a contented sigh. ¡°Alright, well, I¡¯ve finished all the cleanup work, so let¡¯s get this planning session underway. Can you give me the details on the job again?¡±


    ***


    After Monroe left to prepare for their mission, Trace took a moment to finish up the order for the new controller-boards and send them in. Then he set everything about the railgun to the side. He would need to finish it after they got back from the wastelands.


    After that, he set about cleaning everything unneeded from the backseats of the truck. He had been using them as storage space for his most used guns and didn¡¯t plan to change that. However, a lot of extra guns had crept in as well.


    Eventually, he planned to put some proper storage chests and hangers back there to keep everything secure. It was at this point that he found out that the backseats could be pulled up to reveal some storage underneath the seats. Which he promptly stuffed full of ammo in various containers that kept all the magazines and loose ammo neat.


    The minigun was placed on the backseat, with the small amount of ammunition he had for it. The assault rifle was placed on a couple of hangars where the rear window would have been on an older truck. The sniper rifle he had taken from Pushman was placed beneath it, and then his new shotgun hung beneath that.


    His favored scout rifle would be attached to his courier bag, as usual. He would also be wearing both pistols in thigh-holsters as had become his habit. He still couldn¡¯t dual-wield worth anything, but having them both close at hand was too useful not to do it. The tactical stiletto had been moved from the inside of his pants to a pocket on the outside tongue of his boots where it would stay until needed.


    The latest addition was a sheathed vibro-blade laying length-wise strapped to his belt just above his rear. In that position, the hilt was in an easy position for him to grab.


    He felt as though he was ready, weapon-wise at least. He just needed to fix up his armor and then get some food and drink for the trip. There was also the matter of letting Ko know that she needed to take care of Deckard while he was gone.


    Was this what people used to feel like before the World Wars when they went on a trip and needed someone to look after a pet?


    Getting his lightweight armor together was easy, as he had already collected it from the corpo agents. The only annoying thing was that it was entirely made up of separate pieces. It wasn¡¯t a complete ballistic suit, something that hadn¡¯t been possible with their cyberware.


    With those placed to the side by his courier bag, he hopped in his truck and called Ko while heading to the store.


    ¡°Hey, did Monroe finish fixing that hole?¡± She asked as soon as she answered the call.


    ¡°Yup, he finished the roof, too. The warehouse should be leak-free now and mostly secure. I still need to have him fix the walkways, a few ladders, and everything that made up the upper-level. Anyway, I¡¯m out shopping for supplies for the mission he and I are about to go on. I was wondering if you wanted to get some dinner?¡±


    On the other side of the line, he heard Ko yawn. ¡°Sure, can you come pick me up? We just finished an operation, and I could use some fresh air and a little pick me up.¡±


    He agreed and a minute later was parking the truck in front of the mender¡¯s clinic.


    Inside, he saw that even Anna, the receptionist, looked worn down and tired. He had come to learn that while she was primarily the receptionist, at times she also acted as an assistant during their more intense operations. Whoever they had been working on must have truly been in bad condition if she had not only gotten involved, but also looked that worn out.


    He waved to her, and in turn, she blinked slowly at him, the action looking as though it took all the processing power her tired brain had to spare at the moment.


    Walking on past, he found Sevorah sprawled face-first across her desk. Meanwhile, Ko was on the floor in front of it with her feet propped in the air against its edge.


    ¡°Geez, all three of you look absolutely blasted. What did you have to do, replace all four limbs on someone?¡± He joked, trying to lighten the mood.


    Sevorah awkwardly twisted one of her arms, so her hand was in the right position to flip him off.


    On the floor, Ko opened her eyes and slowly shook her head. ¡°Five gang victims were brought in. The gang is from the north end of the city and styles themselves as masters of the sword. These particular victims had been delimbed by plasma-edged swords. Due to the intense burns and cauterization, we had to remove even more from each of them.¡±


    The previous joviality he had tried to bring to the room had fled in terror of her deadpan delivery.


    His own expression grew solemn as he knelt onto the floor next to her. ¡°How about you? Are you alright? I can¡¯t imagine it was exactly nice seeing something like that or having to work on people while they were still conscious.¡±


    She shuddered and closed her eyes tight. No matter how tightly she shut them, tears still began leaking out around the corners of her closed lids.


    Two of the patients had suffered from a condition where they hyper-metabolized medications. Everything they gave them was either sped through their system in an inactivated state or only lasted for a few minutes at a time. That was a problem when the medication was supposed to last for a full day. They had no idea if it was safe to give them more. Just because it looked as though it was going through the system didn¡¯t mean all of it was. Some of it might be left in their brain, and if they gave them more, then they could risk damaging their brain forever.


    In the end, they had decided to go with a couple of local nerve blocks and keep them conscious. It sucked for everyone involved, but it was better than the alternative.

 Chapter 59

    Ko still seemed a little out of it as they walked through the market. It wasn¡¯t just that she was tired, though that was obviously part of it. The gang attack, and then working on some of their victims, really seemed to be eating at her.


    Trace nudged her shoulder as they stepped in front of a vending machine. ¡°Are you ready to talk and tell me what¡¯s bugging you?¡±


    Ko sighed and shook her head. ¡°This was just a lot today, is all. Several of the gangs have been ramping up their activities over the past couple of weeks. The front portion of the clinic has seen a steep increase in activity. Sevorah runs that as cheaply as she can, and we do good work. That means we have a lot of work. However, the clinic doesn¡¯t mess with cyberware, it¡¯s strictly healthcare and other life-saving services.¡±


    He collected the dozens of sodas that had been deposited beneath the vending machine and stacked them in his bag. His head remained turned towards her, as he kept listening to what she was saying.


    ¡°Sudden operations like the one today are rare. The incoming patients have to meet a certain number of criteria. However, there are two main ones that absolutely can¡¯t be ignored. First, they have to be able to afford Sevorah¡¯s mender services, along with any cyberware they are supplied with. Secondly, and by far the more difficult of the criteria, they have to make it to the clinic in order to receive help. The first is hard enough, but the second is often the true stumbling block.¡±


    Trace could understand that. The elite of the city had access to emergency services, which could show up nearly anywhere and rescue them if their life was in danger. That is, of course, assuming they held the right membership plan.


    With the right package, they would fly in, fight off aggressors, grab the patient, and then stabilize them while en route to a trained doctor. However, certain items began to fall off as each of the lower plans was chosen. You held the absolute basic plan, but were captured? That was really too bad. All you got was a single high-performance personally calibrated healing stim shot into you from long range. There would be no rescue operation, and that one healing dose was all you got. Since you were captured, all it really meant was that you had just given your captors more time to beat on you.


    Emergency services were good at what they did, but like any corporation, they were in it for the money. After you survived, you would then be stuck with a hefty bill covering the rest of their fees for the service.


    In return, what Sevorah was doing was practically saintlike. There were no hidden-fees or anything of that nature. All you had to do was drag your dying body to her clinic in time.


    ¡°How many times have you seen people in that sort of condition before?¡± He asked her gently.


    ¡°Too many times,¡± She replied softly. ¡°And not enough.¡±


    They continued shopping, and she gradually shook off some of her sadness. By the time they had picked up their own dinner, she was getting closer to being normal. After eating, they stopped at another stall and picked up food for Anna and Sevorah before heading back to his truck. Both of them had asked the duo to return with food.


    ¡°Ah, that¡¯s right. I did have something to tell you about,¡± Ko told him suddenly, her voice overcome with excitement. ¡°You know how the nerve connections on cyberware die out if they aren¡¯t extracted properly or frozen right away?¡±


    He nodded. It was why the scavs had all their freezers, and why he had asked Sevorah and Ko for their help with the corpo agent¡¯s cyberware. It was possible to replace the connections, however; it was hard, expensive, and never seemed to work right.


    ¡°Well, I had an idea about that, and asked her if those ¡®dead¡¯ cyberware pieces could be used on an android?¡± Trace whipped his head around to look at her, immediately seeing where she was going with that thought process. ¡°Slow down there,¡± She cautioned him. ¡°She said it¡¯s possible, but that there are a few steps that need to be taken for it to happen. It¡¯s easier and cheaper than replacing the destroyed nerves, but it¡¯s still not easy.¡±


    Trace opened the passenger-side door of the truck for her while he thought over her words. ¡°That potentially makes things easier for us¡­ At least it gives us a place to start, which is more than we had before.¡±


    ***


    Monroe parked his van inside the warehouse beside the truck. They were going to take both vehicles for this job. The hope was that they would come across enough loot to fill both of them.


    Both of them had plans to explore any ruins they came across after the job as well.


    Trace topped up Deckard with nutrient mix one last time and left him with two of those strange modules plugged into the desk computer to look at upon his request. He was sleeping less and less already. Finding a project to occupy his mind had done wonders for his recovery. Instead of sleeping eighteen to twenty-something hours a day, he was down to more like fourteen to eighteen.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    His memories were still fragmented, and he had started to notice gaps where he didn¡¯t think there should be one. Deckard was still hopeful that the issues he was having were a result of the jumbled fragmentary nature his memories were in at the moment and nothing more serious.


    The night before, Ko had agreed to stop by and look in on him from time to time while Trace was gone.


    Monroe handed Trace a box of ammo as he came out. ¡°I loaded them myself last night. They contain a few extra grains of powder than normal, so the kick will be a little extra.¡± It was a box of ammo for the revolver.


    Trace cursed and pulled the courier bag around to his front. ¡°I wish you would have told me. I¡¯ve been collecting all my empty casing ever since I got it. I¡¯ll still give them to you though.¡± He retrieved a partially full box of used cartridges and handed it to the big man. ¡°I got a decent amount of ammo with the gun, but I was definitely starting to worry about where I would get more once I ran out. I haven¡¯t fired it as much as I could have as a result.¡±


    Monroe accepted the box with a grin, knowing what that was like. ¡°Should we head on out? I¡¯ll follow you.¡±


    The drive out of the city was completed without issue despite the near-endless number of ol¡¯jelly suckers. The police and the corporate security teams were still working together. To make matters worse, was the violence from the gangs he could now see erupting all over the place.


    It was a good thing the Midway gang had been eliminated from his neighborhood before all of this began. Hopefully, that would keep his warehouse safe, along with Sevorah¡¯s clinic. He couldn¡¯t say for sure that they would have been within the gang¡¯s territory, but even if they hadn¡¯t been, they would have only just been outside of it.


    Far too close for comfort, in his opinion.


    They followed the old road out of the city for a couple of miles before taking a turnoff. His last job out in the wastelands had taken him out to Lonetree and the scarpo town that existed out there. This time they were headed a little more east and going to what had once been a place called Parker.


    There were several ruins of old towns in between them and their destination that they hoped to explore on their way back. However, they also needed to be careful as they drove through each of them. They were prime locations for potential traps or other creative methods designed to make them stop.


    Both of their vehicles were armor-plated and had run-flat tires.


    If someone really wanted to get them to stop in the middle of those ruins, they would have to work at it. With any luck, they would simply be let through without a problem. They could have fun with everyone on their way back.


    They managed to go off-road and partially skirt around some of the ruins that they had been driving through on the highway for the last several miles. Despite how large this particular section of ruins was, it was completely abandoned due to its close proximity to Denver. By the time that would have become an issue, it was already too late for the place, and it was smarter to move a little farther out.


    Parker, according to what Trace had learned, was a fairly large scarpo town as things went. There were roughly fifteen hundred residents, and they even had a small wall around the place.


    Back in its heyday, Parker had been home to well over one hundred thousand people and had been a city in its own right. Now, it was surrounded by the ruins of what it had once been, while the people who lived there scavenged those same remains to make their living.


    It was a tough life, but the people there never thought about giving up and moving to Denver. They might need to sell their items to the people who lived there, but they themselves would never be under the corporate thumb. They were free.


    In the distance, Trace could see the mounded hills of what had once been a great reservoir. It still contained plenty of water. In fact, there were even a few streams that now ran out of the top of it. However, much like the water that had been in his basement, it had taken on an acidic quality.


    There were a few corporations that worked to filter it and make it semi-drinkable. They succeeded well enough that while it lost the acidic note; it retained the scum that clung to the tongue and the overall smell of garbage. It was what they used as the base for the sodas everyone drank. The taste they infused into it overrode the unpleasant taste and smells. There was nothing they could do about the scum that clung to the tongue. Not unless they were willing to spend even more money on filters anyway. The idea of that happening was a joke in and of itself.


    Trace had no desire to see what was actually floating in the waters of the reservoir.


    Turning his attention back to the road, he barely noted the crumbled remains of a rusted and decrepit warehouse to the side as he drove through an intersection. The walls of the building had fallen inward, eventually taking the roof and crushing anything that had been left inside with it.


    Behind him, Monroe flashed his lights and pulled up alongside him as Trace slowed. ¡°How far out are we going?¡± He asked, keeping his head on a swivel.


    Trace consulted the job details and then the map. ¡°Just another mile or so. We won¡¯t even be getting near the scarpo town, though I would suggest we lock up everything extra tight just in case. Stick-Point says the drug operation is being run out of one of the ruins but doesn¡¯t know which one. So we¡¯ll have to look around on our own.¡± He chuckled and looked behind them. ¡°I suppose we might have passed it already, but I was just heading to the marker pin he had given me as a starter point.¡±


    Monroe rolled his eyes. They had already gone through this the other day when they had talked about the job and done the planning.


    ¡°I¡¯m asking because I thought I saw something move in that destroyed warehouse back there.¡± He said, the deep bass of his voice rumbling through his van and carrying effortlessly to the driver¡¯s seat of the truck.


    ¡°Are you thinking a watcher for the operation or one of the scavengers for the scarpo town?¡±


    He shook his head. ¡°Not sure, but it¡¯ll only take a couple of minutes for us to find out.¡±


    ¡°Alright, since you saw them, you¡¯ll lead us to the right spot of the warehouse, and then I¡¯ll take the lead. No offense, it¡¯s just that I¡¯m shorter and smaller, and weaker¡­¡± Trace trailed off. ¡°Why am I suddenly dissing myself like this? Get driving!¡±

 Divergence Seven

    With the advent of the space race, corporations began vying for rights to create the first spaceship to carry a human into orbit. After that, it was who was going to create the escape pods, and lunar lander for when they eventually went to the moon. The list continued to grow as the fever for the race overtook every country.


    Under those circumstances, the various governments couldn¡¯t risk creating their own agencies to act as an oversight umbrella. Two other countries had tried similar things and promptly had people and companies leave.


    India had tried to restrict everything to their own agency, only to lose seventeen corporations and three million people in the span of a week.


    Seeing how badly they had screwed up, the United States quickly reversed course on their own secret plans to do the same thing with NASA. Instead, they welcomed each of the seventeen corporations and their employees with open arms. They changed their policy to the launchpads all belong to us, and we want to be consulted, but that was it. NASA would, of course, keep working on their own projects for the government.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    The second country that screwed up was Egypt. They had been trying to enter the major leagues, in regard to countries, and had seen this as their chance.


    While not as oppressive as India''s, their policies were still too stringent for the likes of most corporations. More so since they announced them weeks after many other countries had revealed their policies. They wanted to be consulted on every little decision, creating a quagmire of bureaucracy that would have slowed progress to a crawl.


    In the end, like India, most corporations chose to flee. Those who did stay, however, fought for and eventually won much better policies and control over their projects. In the end, Egypt was the first corporation-controlled country, and the politicians had handed it to them on a golden platter, all in the name of progress.

 Chapter 60

    Trace had his Kenyobi 10mm pistol in his hands as they crept into the crumbling warehouse. It didn¡¯t have a suppressor, as the extended barrel lacked the threading needed to support the extension. What it did have was the scope that allowed him to peek discreetly around corners while keeping the rest of his body behind cover.


    It was a function that he had taken to using more and more often lately. He didn¡¯t fire the gun very often due to how loud it was, but it was just so useful outside of that one function.


    Using the image he received from the scope, they crept through the opening they had found in the side of the building. Something that wasn¡¯t exactly hard, given its current state. Many of the other holes they had seen only went to tiny rooms that had been blocked off, leading nowhere. This was the first one they had found that connected to a hallway.


    There were old footprints in the loose dirt at their chosen entrance.


    Monroe had his massive revolver strapped to his thigh, forgoing his more standard Lexoya pistol for the moment. Meanwhile, the shotgun he had taken from the corpo agents was in his hands. He had welded a suppressor to the front of the barrel. The spread of the shot would be lower than before, due to the longer length of the barrel. The decrease in how loud it was, combined with making it more deadly, had made the big man very happy.


    He had needed to be careful with how he did it, ensure everything was straight, and that it never grew too hot. Still, it had turned out wonderful, according to him. It still wasn¡¯t as quiet as something like Trace¡¯s CD-10, but it was much better than before.


    Trace kept one eye on what he was seeing through his pistol¡¯s scope, and another on the old footprints in the dirt. Whoever had come this way had been checking the rooms, likely looking for anything valuable. Up ahead of them, there was an intersection, and the footprint traces grew muddled. This was an area that was more frequented.


    He slowed down, his other hand going to the CD-10, still in its holster. A flick of his fingers had the quiet snaps holding it in place undone. Now he could pull it out quickly if needed.


    Crouching down, he slunk closer to the intersection and slowly edged the barrel of the K-10 around the closest corner, all the while looking in the other direction. As soon as he registered that there was no one there, he flipped the gun around and pointed it the opposite way.


    It was just in time to catch a man with an ill-fitting cyberware arm exiting a room. Before the gun could be seen, Trace pulled it back and hurried to the proper side of the corridor. Monroe followed after him a beat later, his heavy steps muffled by the years of gathered dirt.


    ¡®I only see one person. Let¡¯s see if we can take him alive and get a location for the drug operation out of him.¡¯ Trace messaged his partner silently, already having his gun back in place and watching the other man as he stretched out his back.


    He was unwashed, but outside of his awkward arm, he looked mostly normal. There was nothing about him that screamed douchebag gangster, or drug skeeter. If he hadn¡¯t been alone, Trace might have even thought the man was a normal scavenger, due to their relatively close proximity to the scarpo town of Parker.


    However, there were only two kinds of people that entered the ruins alone. The first was edgers, who got bored while out on a mission to the wastelands, and the second was gangsters of some sort. Scavengers and everyone else knew better.


    The ruins were dangerous places to enter alone, and not just because they were all on the verge of crumbling. There was a reason people had never moved back into all of these homes and buildings after the wars. Countless urban battles and small-scale conflicts had left traps and other unknown items all over the place.


    There weren¡¯t even records of all those battles. None may have happened in one location, while the neighborhood a mile away had become a warzone.


    Everyone knew to treat the ruins with caution as a result, unless they wanted to die or were simply reckless.


    Thankfully, by following the footsteps in the dirt, it was easy to see where others had already gone through this place. In that regard, the man was lucky. In Trace¡¯s case, the different sensor scans his eyes could perform would keep them safe. Not that he could use those that often at the moment.


    As soon as the man was looking the wrong way, Trace leaned around the corner with his CD-10 in hand. Taking careful aim, he shot out the back of the man¡¯s leg. With a pained cry, he began to reach for his gun. A second shot that hit him in his normal fleshware shoulder convinced him that was a bad idea.


    Trace waited a few seconds, just letting the man curse at him, to see if anyone would show up to help him.


    Monroe walked quickly past him, lifted the man up by his neck, and inserted a device into his NetConnect. ¡°There now, isn¡¯t that better?¡± He asked the man politely, who stared back at him fearfully.


    ¡°What did you just do?¡±


    ¡°I put in a jammer. This way, you won¡¯t be able to call or message any of your friends and let them know that we are here.¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    ¡°But¡­ those are illegal!¡± He complained with a whine.


    ¡°And making drugs isn¡¯t?¡± Trace asked, coming up beside them. Leaning closer to Monroe, ¡°Do you think you might be able to hook me up with one of those? I¡¯ll pay, of course?¡± He asked.


    The giant of a man placed the injured idiot back on the ground as he began to laugh. ¡°I¡¯ll have to ask. It was made by a friend.¡±


    Trace blinked and nodded, his eyes flicking down to the revolver on the man¡¯s thigh. He hadn¡¯t forgotten about what sort of people he knew already; however, he hadn¡¯t described them as friends.


    ¡°I can¡¯t wait.¡± He shifted his attention back to their prisoner. ¡°Now, tell us which of the ruins the drug operation is based out of.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about. I¡¯m just a scavenger.¡± He told them, continuing to whine annoyingly. ¡°I have nothing to do with those people.¡±


    Trace and Monroe shared a few quick messages back and forth as they came up with a plan.


    ¡°Very well then, Flash-Fry, if you would do the honors. Crush his arm, start with the cyberware one first, and let him see how easy it is for you to do. I want to see how quickly he begins to talk after that.¡± Trace used Monroe¡¯s edger name since they were in the middle of a job.


    Monroe grinned, acting as though he was just a big dumb brute as he grabbed the forearm area of the cyberware with his own cyberware limb and squeezed. His face didn¡¯t show an ounce of strain as his fingers tightened and the metal began to bend and deform. With a crunch, something inside broke and the man¡¯s hand fell limp amidst a shower of sparks.


    He screamed at the sudden backlash the damage brought on the nerves controlling the hand. The arm hadn¡¯t been covered in synth skin, so it wasn¡¯t connected to nerves in that way. It was merely the feedback from having an active limb connection severed improperly.


    The man tried to reach across and cradle his arm protectively. Except Trace had shot that arm in the shoulder and it wasn¡¯t responding properly.


    ¡°Stop, please stop,¡± He cried, tears flowing down his face. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you what you want to know. Just stop, please.¡±


    Monroe unclasped his hand around the man¡¯s deformed metal cyberware arm, which now had an imprint of his hand around the forearm.


    ¡°That¡¯s all we ever wanted,¡± Trace told him with a smile. ¡°We even asked politely. You¡¯re the one who made us do this to you. I hope you see that.¡±


    He nodded emphatically. ¡°I do, I do. It was my fault, I know that. I¡¯ll tell you everything. Just follow this road in the direction you were going before. In about one and a half miles, you¡¯ll come to an intersection. Turn left there and follow it for three miles. You¡¯ll see another intersection. Go through it and immediately turn right. You¡¯ll see a large building. That¡¯s where we, they, I mean they, have holed up.¡±


    ¡°Good, thank you. I mean.¡± The man looked so glad that he had been able to help them that Trace almost felt guilty shooting him in the head. The roar of the K-10 echoed through the empty corridors around them. ¡°I feel a little dirty now. I think you broke his mind with that small amount of pain.¡±


    ¡°Me? You¡¯re the one who gaslit the poor bastard and told him it was all his fault.¡± Monroe argued as they searched him for anything good, making sure to retrieve his jamming module.


    Nothing. His weapon would be worth a few credits, and he had a couple stashed in his crypto-vault, but that was it.


    ¡°Still, it wouldn¡¯t have been that easy to do if his mind hadn¡¯t already been broken by you.¡± Trace wiggled a finger into his ear and popped his jaw. ¡°When we get back, do you think you might be able to weld a suppressor onto this pistol for me?¡±


    Monroe took the K-10 from him, with his permission, and began looking it over. ¡°It already has an extended barrel. If I make it too much longer, it could become unwieldy.¡± He held it against his side and acted through the motion of drawing it a few times as they walked back to their vehicles.


    ¡°I can do it, yeah. It¡¯s not a problem, though I would suggest going for a shortened suppressor. It won¡¯t be as quiet as your CD-10, but it¡¯ll be worlds better than it currently is. The smaller amount being added on will keep the end result from being overly unwieldy as well.¡±


    Trace took it back from him and compared the length of the extended barrel to his CD-10 with the suppressor attached. They were nearly the same length, with the K-10 only an inch shorter. He hadn¡¯t realized how long the extended barrel actually was until that moment.


    ¡°That sounds like a good idea,¡± He said at last, putting them both away. ¡°I hardly ever used it right now, outside of scouting because of how loud it is. I¡¯m trying to become a wraith, so I need my equipment to be quiet.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s do that then. When we get back, I¡¯ll put a shortened suppressor on it. We¡¯ll see if we can¡¯t just have the threads added to the gun first. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can¡¯t, and other times,¡± He hefted the shotgun. ¡°It simply isn¡¯t worth the effort.¡±


    ¡°Huh, I didn¡¯t know they could do something like that,¡± Trace admitted.


    ¡°Well, I grew up closer to the life than I believe you did,¡± Monroe admitted with a wink. ¡°There are a couple of different ways of doing it, and not all of them make long-term sense. I¡¯ll go with you when you go to the shop to ask.¡±


    A few minutes later, they reached the first intersection and turned left, just as the man had told them to. A few miles later, they reached the next described intersection and stopped in the middle of it.


    To their right were the ruins of an old shopping center. The predominant building was an ancient multi-story grocery store with a sign that read ¡®King Kroge¡¯ dangling from some ropes near the roof. The outside of the ten-story building was covered in countless exits and entrances on each floor.


    ¡°It looks like this place was some sort of automated grocery store, back before the wars,¡± Monroe told him over the call he had initiated as soon as the intersection came into view. ¡°I heard about these sorts of things from other edgers. They were entirely run by robots. People would call in with their food orders, and the bots would select it and then send it out for delivery onto another robot, one that could fly this time.¡±


    ¡°There wasn¡¯t a human involved at any part in the process?¡± Trace wondered, trying to imagine it.


    ¡°Nope, apparently that was how they wanted it back then. The entire idea was to give people more free time to pursue whatever made them happy. Back then, there was plenty of food, real food for everyone.¡±


    ¡°Okay, now I know you¡¯re joking,¡± Trace laughed, no longer taking him seriously. ¡°There is no way the corporations would let any of that happen. There would be too little profit in it for them.¡±


    ¡°They didn¡¯t,¡± Monroe agreed. ¡°They attacked the steel goddess and caused all of this, after all.¡±


    Trace felt the air get sucked out of him as he abruptly stopped laughing. That was right, so few people mentioned it, that it was easy to forget how everything had become the way that it was. At times it felt as though the cause would become forgotten history, but somehow the truth kept getting spread around and never being forgotten. No matter how much the corporations wanted it to be, the average person wouldn¡¯t let the truth die without a fight.

 Chapter 61

    The two of them parked their vehicles in the ruins about a mile away from the building and began getting ready. There was no doubt that their approach had been noticed at some point, either by other watchers or by someone in the building itself.


    Since they didn¡¯t know the terrain, sneaking up on the location would have been a nearly impossible prospect.


    Now that they had discovered the operations base, the main part of the job could begin. That consisted of them mainly reconnoitering the area. Ensuring that this was actually the correct location for one and two, getting a general idea of how many people they would be up against.


    Trace sent the location to Stick-Point, as he strapped on all of his lightweight armor pieces, growing hotter by the second. They were another layer underneath the boiling sun, and he hated it. That didn¡¯t mean he was going to remove them though. They might be uncomfortable, and a little annoying to put on, but he well knew the value of armor.


    Hopefully, he wouldn¡¯t be going up against anything with as much firepower as what Monroe carried in nearly all of his guns. The man didn¡¯t seem to understand the concept of restraint. The sole exception was his semi-auto pistol, which he wasn¡¯t even wearing that day.


    Trace unstrapped the scout rifle from his courier bag and instead strapped the assault rifle to it. Extra magazines for both were inside the outside pockets, along with a first-aid kit, just in case. He would be carrying the scout rifle for now.


    It had a scope and a suppressor on it, making it his go-to gun for most things, and this time was no different. Since they were tasked with learning how many people there were, a scope was vital. Granted, the sniper rifle would have been better, except it was also far heavier and more awkward to carry. He wouldn¡¯t have been able to carry the assault rifle as well if he was going to use that gun.


    The sniper rifle didn¡¯t fold down like the scout rifle did, which made it nearly impossible to strap onto his bag.


    It was simply easier this way, even if it was slightly less efficient. He would need to see about upgrading the scope of the scout rifle to something better in the future.


    Together, he and Monroe moved through the shadows of the ruins that lined the immediate sides of the road. A little farther away, they could see the blasted-out ruins of what had once been a neighborhood of cookie-cutter houses. Even in death, enough of their rotted frames remained that they still looked almost identical.


    Those houses were where a scavenger would find the items they really wanted. It was also the place most likely to contain some form of unexploded ordinance, trap, or, if they were really unlucky, a deathbot of some sort. Those monstrous machines had once been famous for preying almost exclusively on civilians.


    Keeping their eyes open, they made their way slowly back to the grocery building.


    Trace had to admit, it was much easier to do all of this with another person by his side. Having a partner to watch your back and other extremities was far more useful than he had first believed.


    It allowed them to make better overall time, without the coverage of their surroundings'' suffering. It wasn¡¯t by much, but it helped.


    The mile took them a little over two hours to traverse, during which time they saw and eliminated two watchers along the path. The gear they were carrying was just as crappy as the first one they had come across back at the crumbling warehouse. Although both of these at least had a couple of grenades.


    Monroe took the bulk of those; however, Trace clipped a couple to his bag for emergencies. They were loud, but he had also seen how effective they were when you needed them.


    They stopped in the remains of what appeared to be some sort of restaurant that had once been a holy site for the people there. It had faded golden arches that had probably once invoked proper feelings of respect in the visitors. Unfortunately, those days had passed, and the site of holy appetites was nothing more than a forgotten memory, just like everything else around it.


    Crawling onto its roof, Trace used the scope of the scout rifle to peer into the windows of the building across the way. The entrances on each of the floors, the ones that Monroe had mentioned, were for flying robots, had all been boarded over. Many of the windows had been painted or covered with age-yellowed paper to block out the sun and prying eyes at some point in the past.


    If he had to guess, this wasn¡¯t the first time that a gang or other such organization had used the building for their own purposes. There were a few locations where the paper had fallen down, or where the paint had been scraped off by careless people throughout the years. Those gaps were small, and if they were any farther away, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to get any details with the scope he currently had on the rifle.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    However, it was good enough, and they were close enough that, combined with the magnification from his eyes, he could glean a few details.


    The first of which was that the inside of the building had been completely stripped at some point in the past. All the hardware it had needed to be a functioning robotic-centric grocery store was gone. At least on the floors and areas, he could see.


    What he did see though, was interesting, and somewhat concerning. At least if he was interpreting what he thought he was seeing through those gaps properly. Because he kind of hoped he wasn¡¯t.


    It looked as though they had managed to create a properly automated system for the creation of their drugs. Unfortunately, that was all he could see at the moment. It was hard to even keep track of the number of people inside the building, as they all wore the same outfits.


    They would need to get a better vantage point if they wanted more information.


    Before heading back down, Trace took a minute to scan the rooftops and various windows for watchers. As far as he could tell, there were three of them. One on the main building, and then one on the roofs of the second-story ruins to either side of it.


    He steadied the barrel of the rifle using its built-in tripod and aimed at the one on the roof of the larger building. That one would be first, just as soon as they turned away or did something. Then he would repeat that with the other two.


    He and Monroe had been maintaining a call ever since he climbed up to the roof. Trace whispered his intentions to him, making sure he knew everything he had seen.


    ¡°Hopefully, they¡¯re not doing something similar to us,¡± The big man said, keeping watch out down below.


    ¡°Yeah, hopefully. Not much I can do if they are. It¡¯s too dangerous to just leave them where they are. It will put us on a timer of sorts. No matter what, even if this goes flawlessly, someone will go up to check on them at some point.¡±


    Monroe could be heard snorting and hocking up a ball of phlegm. ¡°Let¡¯s do it. I¡¯ve got no love for skeeters, but the ones who make the drugs to get them that way are even worse in my book. No personal vendetta, you understand, just general disgust.¡±


    A skeeter was a sort of catchall term for drug addicts, drug mules, and more. Really anyone that might be getting the shaft by those creating or selling the drugs themselves.


    Trace mentally nodded and took aim, keeping his breath even while he waited for his chance. He had already accounted for the distance, the wind, elevation, even humidity, or rather lack of humidity. He was as ready to take the shot as he could be. Now he just needed the watcher to step back from the edge. It wouldn¡¯t do to have him fall over the side of the building and hit the ground in full view of everyone.


    That would be announcing their presence with an unwanted bang and starting off the job on a very bad note.


    He waited, resisting the urge to scratch his nose, then the small of his back, the inside of his thigh, the back of his knee, and his balls. EVERYTHING! It was one infuriating item after the next that called for his attention, each worse than the last. He refused to give in, but it was such a close thing, and all he wanted to do was scratch at something.


    Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the watcher stepped back and opened his fly. Suddenly, Trace had to take a leak as well.


    With a barely contained growl, and his head beginning to twitch in desperation, he corrected his aim and squeezed the trigger.


    On the roof, the man crumpled into a puddle of his own making. Trace was a little happy about that, feeling as though the man had gotten what he deserved with that particular indignity.


    He brought his aim down and sighted in on the watcher sitting on the roof to the left. With how desperate he was feeling at the moment, the plan needed to change. He clicked the elevation dial on the scope but left everything else the same and squeezed the trigger again.


    There was a burst of blood as a new hole appeared in the man¡¯s head, and then he was swiveling the last of the targets. No changes were needed to the settings this time. All he needed to do was to acquire the target and squeeze the trigger. Which he did as quickly as possible.


    He took an extra second to confirm all three were dead and then flopped onto his back to begin scratching at everything. His shirt came partially up as he rubbed his back against the rough dirt on the roof, while his pants went down to his ankles.


    A minute later, his skin was red and streaked with marks from his fingernails, but he was finally feeling much better.


    Climbing back down from the roof, he found Monroe looking at him oddly.


    ¡°Uh, you know our call is still ongoing, right?¡± Trace slowly nodded, his head tilting to the side in puzzlement. ¡°Well, I¡¯m not one to question other¡¯s hobbies and kinks, but uh, maybe next time, keep your private time to yourself, yeah?¡±


    Trace blushed as his eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. ¡°I was scratching myself, you annoying hulk of a man.¡±


    ¡°Ah, is that what the kids are calling it these days?¡±


    Trace kicked some dirt at him with a laugh. ¡°Shut up, you¡¯re like, what, five years older than me? But, nah, laying up there waiting, I couldn¡¯t scratch anything in case my chance to shoot came. It was initially just one itch, then it was two.¡± He gritted his teeth at the memories, phantom itches beginning to come back. ¡°By the time I could take the shot, everything itched. It felt so good to finally scratch.¡±


    Monroe smirked and turned away. ¡°Like I said, keep your private time to yourself.¡±


    He bent over and picked up a pebble, tossing it at the bald man¡¯s pate. ¡°You could have cut the call at any time. I think we know who the real pervert here is.¡±


    They both chuckled and refocused on the job.


    ¡°Where to next?¡±


    ¡°We can either go up to one of the roofs where the other watchers were and see what is up there or go around to the back of the building,¡± Trace suggested.


    ¡°I feel like the roof option would be better if we wanted to sneak in. Except that isn¡¯t our explicit goal at the moment. That said, getting the number of people involved with this operation would be easier from the inside.¡±


    ¡°The roof it is then, and hopefully it has some sort of entrance into the building. Or at least reveals another way in.¡± Trace agreed readily enough.

 Chapter 62

    They were careful as they approached the ruins. Both of them were sticking to the shadows and being even more careful than before. With the three people he had taken out, there was a sudden increase in the danger of them being noticed.


    Looking up at the building as it rose up in front of them, Trace wished he had brought the suction cup climbing equipment he had back in his warehouse. That was something he would need to move into the truck later. Just storing them back there did him no good if he needed them unexpectedly on a job.


    Once they made it to the ruins, they found a well-worn path in the dirt leading to a set of stairs going up.


    Monroe shook his head and cursed. ¡°It¡¯s looking less like there is going to be an entrance of some sort on the roof.¡±


    Trace agreed with him, but that didn¡¯t stop them from continuing to creep up the steps. Even if there wasn¡¯t an entrance, it would still give them another view of the area, including the back.


    Sure enough, there was no entrance into the building from the roof. It abutted the large grocery store, however, the windows on this side of the building didn¡¯t start until you would have been several floors above the roof of their current building. It was something that he had seen from his earlier perch, but due to bad angles, he hadn¡¯t been able to see the entire wall. The hope had been that there might be something beneath the windows in the concrete wall and brick.


    Now they knew for sure there wasn¡¯t.


    More than a little annoyed with the entire situation, Trace grabbed the credits from the dead watcher¡¯s crypto-vault and then hauled him to the back edge of the building. He pushed him off and then took a long look at the ruined remains of the area that had once been known as Stonegate. It had started off as an unincorporated community of Parker -whatever that meant- and then grown into a proper town at some point.


    Now it was just another ruin, one that happened to bleed into the much larger area of Parker.


    Looking out from the top of the ruined store, he saw destroyed neighborhood after destroyed neighborhood. The war had not been kind to that section of the town, and yet, turning to look the other way, there was barely any destruction. There was damage from time and the elements, but that was it. The landscape lacked the remodeling that came from bombs, bullets, fire, and other destructive items.


    It was his first time seeing it in person, but he had always heard about how the utter randomness of the attacks was strange to see. The history books talked about how neighborhoods even two streets over could be completely spared damage. Meanwhile, that one neighborhood had been turned into an utter warzone.


    Shaking his head, he forced himself to turn away and focus on the back of the grocery store. There was a parking lot behind it, though the pavement was in terrible condition. Not that the rest of the roads were anything special, but they saw enough use from edgers and other folk that the main source of damage to them came from the weather. The pavement back there had been completely reclaimed by nature.


    Weeds grew through large cracks, and several gnarled trees had managed to push their way up as well.


    It didn¡¯t look as though anything or anyone had gone back there in ages. Which suited Trace just fine, because he saw several doors alongside the completely rusted-shut loading doors.


    He pointed them out to Monroe, and a few seconds later, they were making their way down and around the back of the building.


    Once there, they quickly discovered that each of the doors had been welded shut. There was a bright side to be gotten from the information, according to Monroe, after he looked at a few of them that had been done outside. They were old, at least old enough that the rust had started to penetrate into the metal.


    That meant that the current inhabitants hadn¡¯t thought to secure the back of the building. While not necessarily a knock against the current leader¡¯s intelligence, it also at least kept it somewhat of a mystery. If this had been recent, and a result of his orders, then they would have known he was smart and competent.


    The odds of that being the case were already frighteningly high. Neither wanted it to be confirmed if it could be helped. It was sometimes better to live in a state of delusion.


    Backing away from the rear doors, they made their way back to the front. After finding a place near the entrance to hide, they hunkered down to talk and plan.


    ¡°I¡¯m not seeing a way we can count how many members that they have without entering the building.¡± Trace began with a somber scowl. ¡°Doing that would put us directly in harm''s way, not to mention it sort of goes against what Stick-Point wanted us to do.¡±Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Monroe was leaning against a filthy wall and peeking through an old bullet hole at the entrance. ¡°They aren¡¯t doing anything. Why not?¡±


    ¡°Hmm? What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°The first watch notified them we were in the area. Then we stopped right in the middle of the intersection where those three watchers you iced could have seen us. There were also the other two watchers we took out on our way back here. They would have notified the group about spotting our vehicles.¡± The big man jabbed a finger toward the building. ¡°Despite all of that, how many people have we seen come out of there?¡±


    Trace nodded in dawning realization. ¡°Frack. They have two separate bases. This is only where they create everything. The storage and distribution hub is somewhere else. With everything being welded shut for so long and the condition of the back pavement, they use the loading facilities. There aren¡¯t any other vehicles around here either.¡±


    Monroe cursed, his head snapping around. ¡°That¡¯s what¡¯s been bothering me. There aren¡¯t any cars. The people inside would have no way of coming after us, even if they wanted to.¡±


    ¡°What now then? We have to track down another location, but what about this place?¡±


    He shook his head and ran a dirty hand over the sweaty bald thing. ¡°You got me on that one. We got the location of this place because we politely asked that first watcher for help. Do you really think that will work again if we enter the building and by some miracle manage to find someone by themself without raising an alarm?¡±


    The very idea was ludicrous, but neither of them had a better idea at the moment.


    It was either camp out, waiting for something to happen, or do this.


    Unsurprisingly, they chose to enter the building. However, they weren¡¯t going to use the front entrance. Instead, they were going in through the side entrance, one they were about to create.


    They took the stairs up to the roof of the ruined building. Trace quickly grabbed the credits from the dead watcher and tossed him over the rear edge. They had gone around the opposite way when they returned in order to look for other opportunities in to the building. There hadn¡¯t been any.


    Trace pressed his face up against the wall and activated an S&R scan. The material of the wall would severely cut down its range, but by doing this, he should still be able to tell if anyone was on the other side.


    There was no one in range of his scan on the other side of the wall, which was all he could say. Walking down to the back corner, he tried again. Still nothing. He was seeing maybe ten feet into the room? A severe drop-off from his normal scanning range, to be sure.


    ¡°I don¡¯t see anyone on the other side of the wall, but my range is like ten feet when I¡¯m trying to go through material like this. There could be an army of people just beyond that and we¡¯d never know.¡± He informed and cautioned Monroe in turn.


    The big man hefted his suppressed shotgun, brought it close to the wall, and pulled the trigger. A fist-sized chunk of the wall exploding was louder than the gun itself. The shell automatically ejected as the semi-auto shotgun pumped a new round into place for him. He squeezed the trigger again and again, emptying the tube magazine in a scant number of seconds.


    Monroe reached into the depths of a pocket in his cargo pants and retrieved some fresh shells for the shotgun. ¡°Not bad,¡± He admitted with a smile. ¡°I didn¡¯t have time to test it out last night after I finished working on it. The gun is quieter than I was expecting.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m more impressed by the power,¡± Trace muttered as he kicked the wall, bouncing backward as it wobbled and began to totter back and forth.


    Monroe gave it a kick of his own and then moved out of the way. ¡°Can I assume you want me to make the same modification to your shotgun when we return?¡±


    Trace nodded with a grin. ¡°If you would, please.¡±


    ¡°What is with you and suppressors, anyway?¡±


    ¡°I thought I mentioned that I wanted to be a wraith in the future?¡±


    Monroe blinked and then covered his face as the small section he had blasted free finally toppled to the ground with a crash. ¡°Not exactly subtle, or quiet that.¡± He scratched at his chin while ducking down and peeking into the dark room beyond. ¡°Now that you mention it, I think I vaguely recall you saying something like that. I probably ignored it at the time on account of every edger saying something similar. We all want to hit those specializations at some point. I guess I figured your dream was the same.¡±


    Trace ducked down and slipped through the hole, going first since he would have an easier time fitting. ¡°You¡¯re not entirely wrong, but there is far more to it than that as well. Stick-Point told me that for certain specializations, it is more a matter of how you have developed your skills, equipment, and fighting style than anything else.¡±


    He shook his head. ¡°Err, that wasn¡¯t right. I mean, it¡¯s all about a combination of several factors, not just one thing. Right now, I can somewhat control my guns and make sure they are all as quiet as possible. So, that¡¯s what I¡¯m trying to do. I mean, can you imagine trying to become a specialized ¡®System Ghost¡¯ without having the proper skills or equipment to breach systems beforehand? You¡¯d get laughed out of existence.¡±


    The gain on his eyes increased and the area beyond the room came into sharper focus. ¡°Alright, come on in. There isn¡¯t anyone on this floor, but you have got to see this.¡±


    Monroe grunted as he forced himself through the slightly too-small hole. ¡°Mobile fortress.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what I originally wanted to specialize in when I was younger. I wanted to go the mobile fortress route.¡±


    Trace whistled, his respect for the man increasing. ¡°That is a big dream. Having your own mech¡­ I admit I¡¯d love to take one apart and see how they work, but I¡¯ve heard how much they cost.¡± He shivered. ¡°I think I¡¯ll stick with trying to become a wraith. The equipment might still be expensive, but at least I can buy them as I need them.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, well, I gave up on that dream a¡­ while¡­ ago.¡± Monroe slowly finished his sentence as he took in the crates of synthetic drugs.


    They were stacked three high in neat rows that filled the main room in front of them. There were several crates open in the room they had created their doorway into that were currently open. Each crate was filled with inhalers that all had a different colored label on them.


    ¡°What in the ever-loving skeeter-shizz is this?¡± Monroe whispered, picking up one of the inhalers. ¡°This is enough drugs to put half of Denver in a coma.¡±

 Chapter 63

    From the far side of the floor, they heard the clomp of feet as an unknown number of people descended the stairs in a rush.


    Trace quickly took photo after photo of the line of crates along with the exposed inhalers and sent them off to Stick-Point in a black message. They were about to be in a gunfight, and he didn¡¯t have time to put anything more together.


    Monroe lightly tossed a grenade in his hand a couple of times. ¡°I know we weren¡¯t meant to fully attack this place, but I don¡¯t think that is really an option at this point.¡±


    ¡°Keep it clear of the crates,¡± Trace told him. ¡°We¡¯ll use them on the way out though, to get rid of all this stock. Something tells me that this isn¡¯t all they have.¡±


    ¡°Same,¡± Monroe pulled the pin, and using his cyberware arm, threw it all the way across the room to the stairs.


    They ducked behind the room¡¯s wall and mentally counted down. A few seconds later, there was an explosion, and a cloud of dust and dirt blew back into the main section of the room where all the crates were.


    ¡°Ugh, I need to get a mask,¡± Trace coughed out, his tongue immediately getting coated with a layer of everything floating in the air. ¡°Well, if they didn¡¯t know we were here before, they certainly do now. Let¡¯s move. I¡¯d rather not be around all these drugs when the bullets start flying.¡±


    The compressed gasses inside the inhalers would be released in a second if they took any damage. It wouldn¡¯t take much for this entire floor to become a skeeters paradise and his and Monroe¡¯s worst nightmare.


    They rushed out of the room and ran toward the stairs. Since this had been a place run primarily by robots in the past, there was only the one set of stairs, instead of the usual two. It kept their backs safe, for the most part, but it also meant they had to traverse the entire floor before the gangsters emerged. As long as no one thought about going out and then onto the roof to enter through the hole they had created, they would be fine.


    Trace could feel his lungs pumping wildly, burning as he was forced to breathe through his increasingly clogged mouth. There was so much crap in the air, and he was sucking it all in with every heaving breath. While he was in better shape than he had been before that scav job he did for Jonas the Slick, he still wasn¡¯t in perfect shape.


    He slammed his back into the wall next to the stairs and began coughing up bits of cruds from his throat. Next to him, Monroe was doing much better, as he had possessed the good sense to pull his shirt up over his mouth and nose.


    They waited next to the opening, listening for the sound of feet. However, nothing could be heard over the noise of the men in the stairwell who were still alive screaming in pain. At least that was the case until a grenade rolled into view. It bounced off the edge of the opening on the opposite side and careened into the room. The metal orb rolled against a crate and spun off into an aisle where it kept going.


    Trace and Monroe shared a quick look and hurried into the stairwell. There was no way they were sticking around for that noxious cloud of gas.


    Pistol at the ready, Trace was aiming up the steps while Monroe had his shotgun pointed down toward the floor below.


    The suppressed CD-10 coughed quietly as he squeezed the trigger at the shadows above them. There was a single yell of pain, but the other two shots only caused sparks to fly up as he missed. He had never really practiced shooting while running, or even moving before, and his aim suffered severely as a result.


    Behind him, the shotgun belched out a load of buckshot. Inside the enclosed area of the stairwell, the difference in how loud it was compared to his CD-10 was very noticeable. That said, it was by no means deafening.


    Taking the stairs two at a time, he skirted the bodies, and quickly reached the landing in-between floors. Bullets pinged past his face, coming close enough that their passage caused the air left in their wake to burn thin lines across his cheek and neck.


    Jerking back, he holstered the pistol and took a second to retrieve his assault rifle. It had been awkward having two rifles strapped to his bag at the same time, even if it was supposedly able to handle it. If he put that much weight on it, then he needed to use the waist strap to keep the bag secure, and he hated using that thing. Half the reason he liked the courier bag was because of how easy it was to slide around to his front whenever he needed to.


    With the assault rifle in hand, he did a quick S&R scan to locate the people above him. Their positions firmly in his mind''s eye, he stepped out and fired off two quick bursts. The loud, unsuppressed fire rang through the stairwell, deafening him and momentarily causing his ears to hurt.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    By that point, he had already lost count of how many people had been in the building. Mainly on account of the people who had been taken out by the grenade on the stairs. He hadn¡¯t bothered counting how many had been lying there as he ran past them.


    Trace waited for Monroe to catch up before they moved up to the next floor together.


    The ruins outside had been two-story buildings, so using the roof, they had emerged onto the third floor. That meant this was the fourth floor.


    All the production that he had seen going on had been limited to the upper floors. The tenth floor had been completely blocked from view, but the four floors beneath it had been hives of productive activity. There had been lots of machinery he hadn¡¯t been able to recognize through the scope.


    The fifth floor had been utterly dark, so he hadn¡¯t been able to see anything at the time. As for this floor, it had been packed with people. Or at least he thought it had been, it was so hard to tell through the small gaps, and with everyone wearing the same outfits. It could have only been a couple of people moving back and forth constantly.


    ¡°What do you think?¡± Trace asked, pointing the barrel of his rifle at the door to the fourth floor. ¡°Deal with this now? Or rush up to the top and work our way down?¡±


    Monroe cracked his neck, a grin taking over his face. ¡°Definitely working our way down. What happened to operating quietly though?¡±


    Trace sighed. ¡°Wrong mission for that, or maybe I¡¯m doing it wrong. I don¡¯t know. No one has taught me how to be a silent killer. I¡¯m making it all up as I go. I want to get enough money to buy some decent teaching modules on the subject soon, but well, they¡¯re expensive.¡±


    ¡°Which is why you want someone who can help you strip the place down to the paint after each job.¡± His partner finished for him. ¡°I understand. Well, I thought you were doing fine originally. It¡¯s just, not all styles fit each job.¡±


    Trace grabbed the grenades from the men he had killed and shook his head. ¡°I¡¯d like to believe that, but real wraiths are supposed to be able to complete their jobs without ever being detected. No matter how hard it is, or how many people there are.¡±


    ¡°Sure, but you forget one thing. You¡¯re not an actual wraith yet.¡± Monroe swiped the grenades from him and pushed him up the stairs. He pulled the pin on one of them and tossed in through the door of the fourth floor, pulling it shut behind him.


    They would check what was on that floor later.


    Together, they began running up the stairs, shooting at anything that moved. They were being wildly reckless; however, it was throwing the gangsters off, as they had no idea how to handle the situation. A few would appear on each floor, making a token effort at slowing them down. That was it.


    Twenty minutes later, they were on the landing for the tenth floor. Both were completely out of breath, while Trace¡¯s chest had also accumulated a couple of new bruises. Thankfully, his bulletproof vest had done its job. He was equally glad that they hadn¡¯t been using any heavier ammo.


    Taking a moment to regain their breath, they threw open the door and peeked inside, only to be disappointed. The floor was used for storage. It was maybe useful for Trace if he felt like carrying the old equipment down all those flights of stairs, but that was it. Old conveyer belts, shelves, charging units, robotic arms, and possibly even a robot or two. It had all been shoved away and left forgotten on that floor. There were newer items as well, from past inhabitants along with the current ones.


    With an annoyed sigh, they closed the door and trudged back down a floor. Monroe¡¯s hands were full of grenades, as they had been plucking them from bodies all the way up. His belt was laden with them.


    He eased the door open enough for Trace to kneel and begin shooting, while he pulled the pins on all the ones he was holding.


    ¡°Wait, no Flash-Fry, STOP!¡± Trace yelled at him; a moment too late.


    Six grenades soared into the depths of the floor, clinking noisily as they hit the concrete floor and began to bounce and roll about.


    Without saying anything Trace slammed the door shut and ran back up the stairs that they had descended only a few moments earlier.


    Monroe watched him for a second and then decided it might be a good idea to follow his example. He might not know what it was at the moment, but the other man undoubtedly had a reason for acting the way he did. He had known him long enough to say that much about him for sure.


    Trace had barely stepped onto the landing between floors when they all exploded at the same time. He held his breath, waiting, wondering if what he feared was going to happen would actually happen. Inside the room, slightly below them, he heard the groan of metal, and then a splash of liquid as it began to escape its container.


    That was all he needed to hear; he started running again. This time he didn¡¯t stop at the tenth floor but headed directly to the roof and the fresh air it held.


    ¡°What did you see back there?¡± Monroe wondered as they went to a far corner of the roof to lay down.


    Trace coughed out some more dust and dirt before replying. ¡°Most of the floor was covered in large metal containers. I couldn¡¯t be sure, but I was thinking that they contained the liquid form of the drug that goes into the inhalers. All the vats were being pumped down through pipes to the floor below. So, when they broke open, and assuming that it actually is the drug solution¡­¡±


    Monroe cursed and then began to laugh. ¡°I just pickled everyone in the building with a concentrated dose of their own drug.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, well, let¡¯s hope it¡¯s just some kind of happy-time drug. If it¡¯s a berserk formula-¡± Trace was cutoff as the building trembled.


    Berserk drugs made the user¡¯s mind immune to pain. It also flooded their body with a cocktail of so much adrenaline and whatever else they could think to shove in it that their strength shot through the roof. Needless to say, they at least, though not always, temporarily lost their mind. It wasn¡¯t exactly uncommon to find them snacking on people-shaped meals if they happened to get hungry.


    ¡°Oh, leave it all,¡± Monroe glared at Trace. ¡°I blame you for this. If you hadn¡¯t mentioned that second option just now, the world wouldn¡¯t have conspired against us.¡± He unslung his assault rifle. ¡°I would suggest you get out your revolver. You¡¯re going to need it.¡±

 Chapter 64

    The assault rifle was strapped back onto the courier bag, and the revolver, along with a bunch of ammo, was sitting on the roof while Trace adjusted everything. The waist strap would keep the bag in place, but since he so rarely used it, setting it up was a tad finicky. At last, he shoved the loose ammo into his pockets and held the revolver at the ready.


    The building had continued to tremble every dozen seconds or so, as the people below all bumbled about. Suddenly, there was the sound of glass breaking as one of the large, reinforced windowpanes cracked.


    Hurrying over to the edge, they leaned over and looked down, trying to see what was going on.


    From their position, it was impossible to tell which floor it was, but one of the windowpanes had actually been partially pushed out. Cracks spider-webbed all across its surface, while bolts glistened where the pressure had sheared them off at the quick. There were a few more bolts holding it on near the bottom, but it would only take one more good hit to snap them in the exact same way. Even without the hit, the weight of the window alone might be enough to send it plummeting to the ground, given enough time.


    Farther down, something similar occurred. The hit was weaker, so while the window cracked, it didn¡¯t break any of the bolts holding it in place.


    Monroe looked up at the sky, a grin on his face. ¡°Thank you steel goddess Meredith! It¡¯s a berserk drug alright, but with such a strong dose they have completely lost their minds. It doesn¡¯t seem like they can even tell friend from foe in their current state. With any luck, we can just stay up here where it¡¯s safe until their hearts all give out.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you believe in jinxes?¡± Trace muttered, glancing nervously over at the door.


    ¡°Not when they look like that,¡± Monroe directed his attention down to the first window. A brute with blown-out veins all over his head was being pressed against it, while veiny-fingers that writhed under the pressure they were exerting were wrapped around his vein-thickened throat. ¡°I take it you have never seen what the berserk drug does to a person?¡±


    Trace shook his head in horrified fascination.


    ¡°Extreme adrenaline overload, and who knows what else they have shoved in this cocktail,¡± Monroe told him dispassionately. ¡°Look at their eyes, then their necks, and anywhere else they have cyberware. You¡¯ll understand then.¡±


    It took him a second, but sure enough, there it was, blood leaking out around the edges of the ocular implants. The NetConnect in the neck of the man strangling him had taken on a distinctly crooked appearance and was also leaking blood. Neither of them had any other visible cyberware augments, but just those two were enough for Trace to understand.


    ¡°They¡¯re destroying their own connections. They really have lost their minds,¡± He muttered.


    Monroe nodded. ¡°The more of the drug they take, the stronger they become, but in turn, the less effective they will actually be. Even if they somehow managed to survive a massive dose like this without their hearts literally exploding, all their cyberware and connections would be ruined.¡±


    The window gave out and the two berserk people fell to the ground stories below, alongside the heavy windowpane. They landed amidst shards of glass, their broken bodies getting cut to shreds as they screamed at each other and crawled toward the other. Neither cared about the pain or the blood they were losing. It was doubtful that they could even feel the pain through all the drugs coursing through their system.


    There was a crash on the side of the building as the concrete walls were the next to take a beating from the berserkers inside.


    ¡°Well, this is fun, but I think I¡¯m going to prep a message for Stick-Point,¡± Trace took a few pictures of the situation and sent them off to the man, only then seeing that he had gotten a message from him. In the rush of excitement, after he had sent the original pictures, he hadn¡¯t noticed the incoming message notification.


    Thankfully, the message was just asking for more details, and not something more serious. Though he imagined the man was starting to get a tad annoyed with him by now. He quickly put the first part of the message together and sent it off, then the second part a minute later.


    ¡°How¡¯s it looking?¡± He asked Monroe, as he had stopped paying attention to everything while he put the messages together.


    ¡°It¡¯s starting to slow down, I think. There are a few bulges in the wall, and two more windows were completely taken out of the wall. That¡¯s not counting all the ones that were cracked or partially shoved out.¡± He shrugged. ¡°They did a lot of damage in a short amount of time, both to themselves and the building. I don¡¯t think any more gangs will be using this place anytime soon.¡±


    ¡°Alright, well, I¡¯m going to put this thing back in my bag. I want to take this chance to look around the area while we wait a little longer.¡±The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Monroe retrieved the sniper rifle from the watcher Trace had shot earlier, while he stored the revolver and ammo.


    ¡°Thanks.¡± He said as he accepted the long gun from the bigger man. The scope attached to the sniper rifle was barely better than the one on his scout rifle. Every little bit helped, or at least that was what he was hoping.


    Over the next few minutes, Trace spotted the locations of over a dozen more watchers spread throughout the area. None of them were close enough to have seen what happened at their location. Only the one watcher had been carrying a sniper rifle. All the rest that they had come across had been carrying scout rifles with crappy scopes or assault rifles.


    They were there to keep an eye on the roads near them, not areas in the distance.


    While that was comforting knowledge, it didn¡¯t help Trace at the moment. He was trying to find their other base and having no luck. There was some traffic on the roads, and he could even distantly see people moving about. However, he was fairly certain that the people were wastelanders from Parker. The same was likely true for the vehicles.


    He wasn¡¯t seeing any that looked as though they were going in a different direction than the others or anything that would have marked them as suspicious.


    With a click of his tongue, he swapped corners and began inspecting a different area. This time he was looking more north-east, in the direction behind the store, where the most damage from the wars was still visible.


    There were fewer watchers over there, that was immediately obvious. The blown-out remains of a lifted highway, maybe a mile and a half distant, was the big cutoff point. Everything beyond it was inaccessible due to all the rubble. The highway cut a devastating line across the landscape, interrupting everything for miles.


    Only a little way behind the old grocery store, Trace found what he was looking for. Whatever the building had once been, it looked as though it had gotten turned into a military outpost during one of the wars and then forgotten about. The original sign for the building had long since been destroyed. The sign that was currently on it called the place the ¡®Parker Rec Second Battalion¡¯.


    Regardless of what the sign did or didn¡¯t say, the parking lot in front of the building was packed with vehicles. This was the place they were looking for.


    ¡°Hey Monroe, look at this place.¡± Trace handed him the sniper rifle and pointed to the building in the distance. ¡°I think I found the main base we were looking for.¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s certainly suspicious looking, I¡¯ll give you that, and all those vehicles look like they belong to raiders instead of honest wastelanders.¡± He laid the rifle on the edge of the roof and took a moment to think. ¡°With how close they are to this place; the odds are good that you¡¯re right. I¡¯d like confirmation though, before we send any other teams of edgers in to take them out though.¡±


    ¡°Obviously, we aren¡¯t trying to get innocents killed.¡± Trace agreed. He used the scope to take a few photos and then put the rifle back down. It wasn¡¯t a gun he was interested in lugging around. If it was still there when they came back to strip the place of loot, he might grab it then just to sell it for a few extra credits.


    ¡°You ready to head on down? I haven¡¯t heard anything for a couple of minutes now.¡±


    Opening the door, they slowly made their way down the stairs. Both were ready to hold their breath and or run at a moment''s notice. The door to the ninth floor had a massive dent in it, and the upper corner on the inside had been pushed away from the frame. As a result, when Trace tried to open the door, it wouldn¡¯t move more than a few inches before running into the bent upper-corner.


    The next floor down revealed a little more about how the drug operation, as did the subsequent floors. They stopped on the sixth floor to stare at the remains of everything, understanding how much work had gone into putting this operation together.


    The initial drug formula was all mixed together in the containers on the ninth floor. Then it was piped down to the eighth floor, where it was divided and diluted into the different strength mixtures. From there, it was sent down to the seventh floor, where each strength mixture had the inhaler propellant added to it in pressurized chambers.


    Finally, on the sixth floor was where the inhaler filling stations were, and the bulk of where the workers had been.


    As they stopped on each floor, Trace made sure to document everything and send the pictures to Stick-Point. This operation might have only just recently had a job put out against them, but they had clearly been doing this for at least a couple of years.


    The fifth floor was divided between a sleeping and cooking area. The canned food they saw in the back made both of their stomachs growl in hunger. Those were real canned food, not the questionable food items that they were able to buy these days.


    No, those had such old labels on them that they crumbled to dust as soon as they were touched. The food inside was horribly expired, but on the off-chance, you got one that was even halfway good¡­ the taste would blow you away. Corporations in their day and age simply didn¡¯t care about preserving the original taste of the vegetables or meat. They wanted to create their own flavors.


    ¡°We had already planned to come back here and fetch some items, right?¡± Monroe croaked, his eyes never leaving the cans.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Trace coughed and tried again, more forcefully. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯d say doing so just became a lot more urgent, too. We can¡¯t leave those around for another team to find.¡±


    They skipped the remainder of the floors and ran the rest of the way down the stairs. Screw staying quiet, or moving stealthily, they had potentially some of the best food they would ever eat on the line. They needed to get back to their vehicles as soon as they could.


    Side by side, they hit the ground floor and burst back out into the burning sunlight. With their minds occupied with thoughts of delicious food, it was easy to ignore the mounds of broken bodies on the ground.


    The trip back to the truck and van took only ten minutes, and then two-minutes for them to drive back. Yet, in that short amount of time that they had been gone, three cars had parked directly in front of all the bodies.


    Deciding he wasn¡¯t going to have that; Trace drove right over the corpses and as close to the doors as he could get. Monroe tried to follow after him, but his van didn¡¯t have enough clearance to repeat it. All he managed to do was shove the bodies to the side and then skid to a stop beside the stairs near the entryway.


    Trace unstrapped his assault rifle and headed back inside the building. Those were their cans of FOOD!

 Chapter 65

    Monroe was only a few steps behind him, his own massive assault rifle in hand and a furious expression on his face.


    Trace took one last look at the three unknown vehicles before they passed out of sight. They looked similar to the ones he had seen in front of the old battalion building, but not quite the same. They also didn¡¯t look like the sort of cars edgers would normally drive.


    ¡°I might be wrong, but I think those vehicles belong to actual raiders,¡± Trace muttered softly, as they kept their eyes and ears open.


    They performed a quick sweep of the first floor and then made their way to the stairs.


    The second floor had crates, all in various states of being assembled. There were also some tools and various other things all around the back section. They had tables set up with tools to clean and work on their guns and some light electronic equipment.


    None of it was worth much, but they were the sort of items that were always needed and were guaranteed to sell. If they could find better, more expensive items to grab, these would definitely be worth taking.


    Moving up to the third floor, they found the first of the raiders. He was leaning over a crate that had been destroyed by the earlier grenade, a couple of inhalers held in his hand.


    ¡°How much of the drug can we salvage from this mess?¡± He shouted to someone farther in.


    ¡°It looks like only one grenade went off on this floor. It took out a few crates, is all. Most of the shipment inside is still intact.¡±


    ¡°Shipment?¡± Trace breathed out in wonder. His eyes lit up with understanding and he sent a message to Monroe. ¡®These weren¡¯t going to Denver, or at least not all of them were. They were selling them to the raiders.¡¯


    He nodded. ¡®Stick-Point will be happy to learn this particular piece of information, I¡¯m sure. The raiders have been causing more issues for everyone in the last couple of years. I guess now we know why.¡¯


    Trace nodded and flicked the grenades hanging on the man¡¯s belt. ¡®Do you think you have enough left to destroy everything on the floor?¡¯


    He grinned maliciously, his teeth gleaming in the dark stairwell. ¡®I¡¯m willing to try.¡¯


    All the grenades he had remaining were tossed into the various corners of the room, along with the center. Then they were running back down the stairs.


    The noise was deafening in the enclosed space, and the entire building trembled.


    The space above them brightened as several of the windows on that floor were blown or the items blocking the light were abruptly burned away. The sudden influx of air fanned the flames, while also clearing the air of the aerosolized gases. There were continuous pops as the inhalers exploded, each one adding a little more fuel to the growing fire.


    Yells came from above them as the other raiders stormed down to see what had happened.


    Trace and Monroe waited a few seconds, enough time for them to settle into a pattern of yelling at each other before acting. They ran back up to the landing, turned the corner, and opened fire. With how closely grouped the people above them were, they hardly needed to aim.


    Four more raiders collapsed to the ground in an instant. Each one having suddenly sprouted several new breathing holes they didn¡¯t seem to know how to use.


    ¡°Well, that wasn¡¯t too bad,¡± Trace affirmed, taking a careful step up the stairs. ¡°Doing this is much easier, with another person at your side.¡±


    They stopped by the bodies of the raiders and grabbed the credits from their crypto-vaults. Monroe swiped the grenades they were carrying, and then they took a second to look at their weapons. They were all carrying smgs and pistols. None of them were low-end stock models, but each had instead been modified by the raiders.


    Trace set the guns to the side with a grin. ¡°I¡¯ll be coming back for those later.¡±


    Monroe grunted. ¡°Are you making a stockpile or something?¡±


    ¡°Just seeing which ones I like, and which ones I don¡¯t. There are things I like and don¡¯t about every gun in my collection so far. Maybe I¡¯ll learn gunsmithing at some point and create my own. Until then, I¡¯m keeping a list of what each gun does well.¡±


    The big man patted his large assault rifle. ¡°You just need something like this. Plenty of power, range, and accuracy.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t forget, you have to be a giant to handle the gonk thing. If I tried firing that thing in any sort of speedy fashion, I¡¯d end up on my back with a dislocated shoulder.¡±


    ¡°Hah, we just need to bulk you up some. Put more meat and muscle on your non-existent frame.¡± Monroe said with a laugh, slapping him on the back.


    Trace looked down at himself and sighed. He had finally started to put on some weight, and this gorilla had to come along. Anyone would look malnourished and skinny next to him.


    ¡°I hate you,¡± He said morosely, going back to climbing up the stairs.


    They peeked into the fourth floor and quickly realized that it was just miscellaneous storage for the entire building. There were boxes full of inhalers stacked alongside boxes of liquid ingredients used to make the drug. There were also boxes of ammo, food, and other supplies. However, the vast majority of it was taken up by the ingredients to create the berserk drug.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    The two shared a glance and grinned. Now this is what they were talking about.


    With all that ammo, they would be set for a while, as they could sell the excess. Trace could use a fair portion of it, but Monroe¡¯s portion would largely be sold. The only standard caliber guns he owned were his pistol and the shotgun. The revolver and the assault rifle both required nonstandard ammo.


    The food, even if it wasn¡¯t canned, would be welcome no matter what. As for the other supplies, they had yet to even look at those boxes and see what was in them.


    Monroe left Trace to work on that floor, while he went up to the fifth floor and began moving the food cans down to his van.


    On his first trip down to the truck, both hands carrying ammo cans, he grabbed his climbing ropes from the back seat. Back up on the fourth floor, he had to shoot out an opening in the window, which freaked Monroe out. He didn¡¯t want to send the window plummeting to the ground or anything. All he wanted to do was create a large enough opening to lean out of.


    After that, he would attach an ammo can to the hook on his climbing rope and lower it to the ground. When it touched down, he would shake it loose and bring the rope back up. It took hours to transfer everything down, and he used that time to make sure Stick-Point was completely up to date on everything.


    Unsurprisingly, the protective job broker was less than happy with him, and subsequently Monroe, for choosing to attack the building. He understood why they had done it, and their thought process, shaky as it may have been at the time. Understanding why they had done something had no effect on his own emotions or his opinion in regard to their job performance.


    With all the details in hand, he decided that the risk to their newly formed group was too great. Instead, he wanted them to stay out there for the night and keep an eye on the gang until reinforcement edgers arrived the next day. The new team would be the ones to attack the other base, while they would then be free to explore the ruins or head on back to the city at that point.


    Stick-Point did make an additional request of them. He wanted a batch of the inhalers brought back. The older man assured Trace that these would not end up in the hands of any corporation. The edgers had their own resources and they would be using them to understand where the gang had gotten their information on the process.


    It was the backup plan in case the gang boss refused to talk.


    The back of his truck was full of ammo cans. All of the available space was taken up to just below the metal sides, with some more stacked higher in the middle. On top of the ammo cans, they had stacked the boxes of food they had found. The food turned out to be a mix of new and old canned goods. Everything was then securely tied down to ensure they wouldn¡¯t go anywhere.


    Inside Monroe¡¯s Black Betty, the canned food they had found on the fifth floor was stored. Along with that were all the boxes of extra supplies. After opening a couple of them, they found out that they were full of soda cans, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and the like. One of the boxes was even full of nothing but water filters, which they guessed the group had gotten in payment from the raiders at some point.


    Only corporations and rich people played around with filtering water still. Everyone else just drank soda like normal.


    Night had fallen by the time they were done moving everything, including their vehicles, and had settled on the roof to maintain a lookout.


    ¡°I¡¯m starting to understand why you wanted another person with a larger vehicle to help with this,¡± Monroe groaned out, popping his back as he leaned back. ¡°I¡¯m not sure how much money we¡¯ll actually make this time around, as I think we both plan on keeping most of what we grabbed. If that wasn¡¯t the case though, and we did sell it all¡­¡±


    The large welder and edger whistled. ¡°I don¡¯t know, ten, fifteen-thousand credits¡­ each? Those old food cans are worth a mint, and those filters have to be worth something decent as well. The rest of it isn¡¯t anything special, but it all adds up.¡±


    Trace nodded, keeping his eyes on the lit building the gang was using in the distance. ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting a windfall anywhere near this scale, that¡¯s for sure. I was thinking that we would be picking through the tenth floor for the best equipment that we could sell. I just know that during my past few jobs, there have always been items left behind because I didn¡¯t have enough room. Equipment, and other pieces, that if I had been able to take, would have earned me another couple thousand in credits.¡±


    ¡°You have an interesting way of operating, that¡¯s for sure.¡±


    He snorted. ¡°Interesting? That¡¯s one way of describing my loot goblin lifestyle. I grew up with nothing, and so I refuse to let anything go to waste, that¡¯s all.¡±


    ¡°You realize most edgers don¡¯t even grab the weapons that drop around them, right? They¡¯ll grab the credits in a person¡¯s unlocked crypto-vault, but that¡¯s usually it. Unless the gun is better than theirs, of course. They don¡¯t go grabbing them to sell them, usually. There are a few who do, but most don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s just stupid. They¡¯re leaving so much money on the ground after each of their jobs.¡± Trace sighed and lightly punched the roof. ¡°I wish I would have known that growing up. I would have just trailed every edger I met and picked up everything they didn¡¯t want.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that would have gone over real well.¡±


    They let the silence linger for a bit before Trace broke the silence with a question. ¡°So, after doing this job together, and what we did at the warehouse, do you still want to work together to get that truck?¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind some more time to get to know each other. I think you were right on that one. But yeah, I believe I do. You don¡¯t seem like the type of person who will stab me in the back over the first prize we come across. It¡¯s obvious you¡¯re hungry for credits, but you also seem to have come up with a decent method to earn them.¡±


    He paused and stared at the slightly younger man. ¡°The only thing that really concerns me is your secrets. We all have them, but whatever yours are, drew that bear aberration to your place. It didn¡¯t break into your basement by accident.¡±


    The skin around Trace¡¯s eyes tightened. ¡°And how exactly do you know that?¡±


    Monroe reached into his pocket and handed a blank module to Trace. ¡°I had that stashed in my van. After we finished moving everything into the vehicles, I retrieved it so I could give it to you. Recognize it?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it looks the same as the other modules we retrieved from the agents in the basement.¡±


    ¡°Well, I doubt that one is running the same program any of theirs are.¡± The bald man replied grimly. ¡°I took that one from the bear and had my tech-whiz friend take a look at it. They¡¯re better at the hardware side of things, but they knew enough to do this.¡±


    ¡°What did they find?¡± Trace was probably supposed to be angry that the man had stolen the module, but at the moment all he had was curiosity. No doubt, the anger would come later.


    ¡°The module has an auto-loading program on it, one that compelled the aberration to track something down. My friend couldn¡¯t tell what that something was, only that it was part of the aberration and that the program was making it sensitive to anything that called to it in a specific way.¡± He shrugged. ¡°Again, not my friend¡¯s specialty, so that is the gist of what they were able to understand.¡±


    Trace carefully kept his face blank as his back went cold. The aberration had been tracking the nanites. Why right then though? Had they noticed Meredith¡¯s little car after all? He severely doubted that either he or Deckard had done anything to draw anyone¡¯s attention in the short time they had been at the warehouse.


    He sucked in a long breath and shoved the module into his pocket. ¡°Thanks for giving this to me. I have a friend of my own who will want to take a look at it. But really, you shouldn¡¯t have taken it in the first place. We have been beating our heads against the wall trying to figure out why they all showed up like that, and the entire time you had the answer!¡± Trace yelled, finally beginning to get angry.


    ¡°I only found out last night. My friend took a bit to get back to me.¡±


    ¡°Argh!¡± Trace yelled at the sky in frustration.

 Chapter 66

    The two stayed up on the roof all night long, maintaining their watch. They had a brief moment of excitement when a single car left the battalion building and sped towards them. A minute later, it screeched to a stop in front of the old grocery store.


    Trace was quick to eliminate them using the scout rifle.


    A few hours later, they received a message letting them know the other teams were en route. They stayed on the roof long enough to watch them arrive and then headed down. The three raider cars were still sitting where they had been parked by their now-dead owners the day before in front of the store.


    Each of them had lift kits similar to what his truck had originally had, along with extremely modified back ends. The backs of each car had been chopped out and welded so they could be used like mini-trucks. In Trace¡¯s opinion, they looked absolutely ridiculous, but to each their own.


    They hurried to where they had parked their own vehicles and began the drive back to Denver. Exploring the ruins would have to wait for another time. A time when their vehicles weren¡¯t already loaded down with loot.


    Besides, if he was being honest with himself, despite having had all night to cool off, Trace was still a little annoyed with Monroe. Knowing that the corporation Vinna-Kwoi -if that was indeed the corp behind the attack- now had a firm target on his warehouse was infuriating. If he had known that before he left, then he could have done something.


    As it was, out there in the wastelands, all he could do was send a message to Ko and hope nothing happened while he was away.


    As they reached the city, Monroe showed him how to go through the security at the wall in the proper manner. If he had known about this the last time around, then the records on the truck wouldn¡¯t have been run the last time around. It really just consisted of showing them his edger ID along with the record of his current mission that had him outside the wall.


    That was it.


    Just like that, they were back inside the city and heading toward the warehouse.


    All the gang activity that they had seen as they were leaving appeared to have died down some. The number of corpo cars shadowing the useless pig punchers was still the same though.


    At the warehouse, they drove both vehicles onto the lift and sent it down to the basement. For the moment, they would store all the cans of food down there, along with the other supplies. The ammo would be stored on the main floor.


    Monroe grabbed a box of supplies, and some food before they headed back up. Once there, they stored the bulk of the ammo and then shoved the rest into Black Betty to be sold off.


    Locking everything up behind them, Trace hopped into the passenger seat of Monroe¡¯s van. He had his courier bag with him, but the scout rifle and assault rifle had been removed from its straps. The scout rifle had been placed back on its hanger in the truck, while the assault rifle was sitting on the floor of Black Betty alongside Trace¡¯s shotgun.


    They were on their way to the gun store to purchase a couple of suppressors and talk to the gunsmith there about working on the K-10. Monroe was also going to sell all his ammo while they were there.


    Trace was also looking for something for his revolver, either a holster or some sort of ammo clip that could be attached to the belt. Anything really that would make it even a little more useful to him.


    Pulling up to the store, they were startled by a notification. Someone had just gone cyberpsycho nearby, like inside the store, close by.


    Grabbing their weapons, they jumped out of Black Betty and ran to the front door of the shop. Peering in through the bar-covered windows, they were quickly able to see what was going on.


    There were several common scenarios when it came to cyberpsychos. The one that Trace and Ko and encountered before was generally the most common. The second most common was the individual simply wanting to kill everyone around them. Going down the list and coming in at number eight was a combination of numbers one and two, wherein the person wanted to kill everyone, but they wanted to do it with weapons that had been fitted to their bodies.


    The psycho in question was currently standing inside the store over the bloody, unconscious body of the gun store owner. She had a shotgun strapped to her arm and was in the process of running wires to a wireless control circuit that was synced to a wireless module in her neck. The shotgun itself was a tech-assisted feed and fire model that had more electronic pieces inside it than was normal.


    There was a whole subset of guns that had technology integrated into their very makeup and design. They worked well and typically had the same functionality as most other guns, sometimes even extra options. However, they couldn¡¯t use mods. There were a few limited upgrades that could be done by a gunsmith, but mostly you got what you bought.Stolen novel; please report.


    Which in this woman¡¯s case was a shotgun that had the capability of being linked to a wireless control circuit.


    ¡°Are we sure she¡¯s gone cyberpsycho?¡± Trace whispered to Monroe. ¡°She seems so much more cognizant and normal than the last one I encountered. That fellow had obviously lost his mind. Compared to him, this lady just seems like a normal, violent person.¡±


    Monroe shrugged. ¡°She got registered as one in the system, so she must have done something to set off the watch protocols in her NetConnect. Mentally, every cyberpsycho is different though. I¡¯ve seen ones who acted completely normal, even as they tore people limb from limb, and others who the only thing wrong with them was how much they had dissociated from reality. They would sit in one place imagining entirely new lives in strange lands. They weren¡¯t a harm to anyone, even themselves.¡±


    Trace reached out and tried the door, only to find it locked. Not that he had really expected much else.


    ¡°The windows will be bulletproof,¡± Monroe told him softly. ¡°We might be able to shoot out the lock, but attempting the backdoor first would be a better choice.¡±


    ¡°Do you know where it is?¡±


    The large man nodded. ¡°Somewhat. I¡¯ve come to this store a few times in the past.¡±


    They rushed down the block, and into an alleyway that split two of the buildings. From behind, all the stores looked the same, and they were forced to estimate where they were. Thankfully, it was easier than they first thought, as the gun store had some very telling items in the area right behind it.


    Trace unholstered his CD-10, while Monroe took out a knife. If possible, they wanted to take the woman alive. From what they had seen, she hadn¡¯t done anything too terrible, so it might be possible to rehabilitate her. Of course, it all depended on what she had done to initially trip the watch protocol.


    Sneaking in through the back of the shop, they could hear the woman muttering to herself. She was talking about angels and demons, and how she had been recruited to rid the city of the filthy demons.


    ¡®Okay, maybe she is crazy,¡¯ Trace sent to Monroe, as they continued to creep closer.


    The store gunsmith had been tied up and then knocked unconscious in the back room. They left him lying there for the moment.


    It took a few tense minutes, of them extra-carefully placing each foot to reach the door that separated the back of the store from the front.


    Trace ran a quick S&R scan to ensure she was still in the same position and began sending a countdown message to Monroe. On his go, the big man flung the door open, nearly ripping it off its hinges. Ignoring the impressive display of strength, Trace, already in position a little farther back, corrected his aim and squeezed the trigger. The corrections were needed so she wouldn¡¯t die from his bullets.


    The first shot hit the bicep of her fleshware arm, jerking her about. The second shot hit her in the same place on the opposite arm, amidst a shower of sparks. She had undergone a full cyberware arm replacement. That meant part of her shoulder and a couple of bones to properly support everything would have been done as well.


    The shot damaged the arm, but wasn¡¯t enough to fully keep it from functioning.


    Monroe ran into the room and used his own cyberware arm to push off the counter as he jumped over it. One of his large, booted feet cracked against her jaw, sending her spinning through the air to crumple against the floor.


    Her muscles contracted in a spasm and the shotgun fired, obliterating a portion of the counter, and barely missing the unconscious and bloody shop owner.


    From beginning to end, the entire encounter had only lasted a few seconds. Thankfully, they had caught her unawares, or it could have easily ended differently.


    Trace joined Monroe in the front of the store, holstering his gun when he saw she was down for the count. Not wanting to take the risk, he reached over and slipped the wireless module out of her NetConnect. Now, they wouldn¡¯t have to worry about the shotgun going off on accident again.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to get some rope from your van and notify Stick-Point that we have apprehended a cyberpsycho so they can cancel the alert.¡±


    Monroe waved a hand distractedly at him. He was already checking on the owner.


    Unlocking the door, Trace stepped out onto the sidewalk, already busy putting the message for Stick-Point together.


    It was why he didn¡¯t see the incoming vehicle until it was too late. Behind the wheel was a panicked edger who thought he was being smart by using his car to bust down the bulletproof door. Brakes squealed as the driver hit them too late to do any good.


    The noise finally attracted Trace¡¯s attention, and in a moment of desperation, he moved. He could feel his ¡®Overcharge 1¡¯ perk kicking in, giving him that full-body burst of adrenaline. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late in this case. The amount of burst it gave him just wasn¡¯t enough to overcome how late he had become aware of the situation.


    Still, he was able to get partially out of the way.


    As a result, when the car hit him, only part of the right side of his body was crushed, instead of all of him.


    The bones in his body had been undergoing a strengthening process for the last couple of weeks. It was even getting close to finishing, and only needed another week and a half, as long as he had plenty of supplements and nutrition. In this instance, that small gap made a large difference.


    The bones along his right side fractured, but mostly held strong. Whereas his leg broke in multiple places, he was lucky it didn¡¯t shatter when it was crushed.


    The majority of the damage went to his arm, which he had held out in front of him in a vain attempt to stop the car. His hand had taken the impact first and then transferred the hit to the rest of his arm in a devastating fashion.


    The wrist of his right hand had been pulverized, the impact turning it into a chalky, useless mush. The actual bones of his arm had held up better, but it was all the worse for him in this case. The muscles around the shoulder joint hadn¡¯t been sufficiently reinforced, not that it would have helped in this case.


    His arm was torn free at the joint, the bones piercing through the skin as they were then driven into the wall behind him.


    In the scant few seconds it took Monroe to burst out of the building, Trace had already lost consciousness. The driver of the car backed up in a rush, which then let Trace fall to the ground, tearing the last pieces of skin that connected his right arm to him as he did so.

 Chapter 67

    Pain, that was all Trace seemed to be aware of as he came around to consciousness. The feeling in his leg seemed to be missing, though he was distantly aware that it was still there. The same couldn¡¯t be said for his hip, side, or shoulder. Those portions of his body were nothing but pain.


    Even before he tried to open his eyes, notifications from the G.H.O.S.T. system began scrolling down from the upper corner of his vision. The majority of which were letting him know that certain poisons had been neutralized as they entered his system. A few were related to the life-saving measures the nanites had performed in their efforts to save his life.


    Even as he watched, more notifications continued to appear in relation to the poison that they were neutralizing.


    His mind was barely functioning at the moment. It was addled by pain, a likely concussion, and who knew what other issues. Still, eventually, he understood what was going on. The nanites believed that whatever medicine the doctor was giving him was poison, and they were working to neutralize it. Just like they would any other poison.


    It took everything he had to force his mind to focus enough to pull up the settings for the G.H.O.S.T. menu. From there, it was a simple matter of finding the option in the appropriate subsetting and disabling it. Still, it took all his concentration and effort just to complete the task.


    As soon as he did so, the new notifications stopped rolling in and a cool sense of disconnect began to settle over him. Within moments he was unconscious once more, unaware that Sevorah and Ko had been struggling to hold his screaming body down the entire time.


    ***


    ¡°Were you able to find out anything about the gonk shazbot who did this to him?¡± Ko asked Monroe quietly, her voice tight with barely restrained fury. She was only now coming to understand how much Trace had begun to mean to her in the short time since they had met. For whatever reason, she had let him in, past her usual boundaries, and now she was paying the inevitable price.


    Monroe had a fierce scowl on his face as he shook his head. ¡°The rotten prick fled as soon as he saw me run out of the store. I sent an alert to Revlock, and he said he would send it on to Stick-Point for me.¡±


    ¡°I got it,¡± Another voice said as someone else entered the conversation. A man approximately in his mid-fifties could be seen walking down the hallway toward them. He was wearing a light-grey three-piece suit, with a long fashion scarf draped down both sides of his chest and a light silver fedora that matched his hair.


    ¡°Stick-Point?¡± Ko wondered, having never met the man before despite Sevorah¡¯s crush on the man.


    He nodded and pulled the hat from his head, revealing a full head of slowly greying hair as Sevorah burst from her office.


    ¡°Dr-¡± She coughed and tried again. ¡°Stick-Point, you didn¡¯t tell me you would be coming here.¡±


    ¡°I thought it would be obvious concerning who is the one laying on your table in there.¡±


    She sighed and nodded in acquiescence to his point. Expecting any less of him had been her mistake. She knew that he cared for the boy in the same way that she cared for Devko.


    The man¡¯s eyes lingered on Ko. ¡°Would you perhaps be Devko?¡± She nodded once, hesitantly. ¡°Yes, you will do nicely. I can see why my little Tune, rather Trace, keeps talking about you. Not only are you cute, but you also don¡¯t look as though you have left his bedside for more than a few moments at a time. Though, I suppose the latter could just be a dedication to your profession.¡±


    Sevorah snorted.


    ¡°Yes, I thought not.¡±


    Ko blushed and unconsciously let her hand go to the exposed cyberware of her throat.


    ¡°You don¡¯t need to be so self-conscious about that, my dear. I doubt he even cares. He mentioned it one time in passing and said it made your voice have an oddly sexy robotic quality.¡± The man laughed as he spun his hat. ¡°He said he found it confusing. That¡¯s the only time he¡¯s ever mentioned it to me at all.¡±


    Ko blinked and fully grabbed her throat. ¡°My mostly robotic voice is sexy?¡±


    Sevorah shrugged. ¡°I mean, the way it mingles with your paralyzed vocal cords does create a certain amount of husky undertones. Besides, you know the way I installed it was designed to rehabilitate your vocal cords. At some point, they will recover as a result from the constant massages and indirect usage.¡±


    Beside the smaller girl, Monroe shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s alright, I guess. You¡¯re a little small for my tastes though. If you were a little taller and had some more muscle on you, then maybe we could talk.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    She finally shook her head and refocused on the question that had started the entire absurd conversation. ¡°You said you got his message? Do you have any idea on who might have been the one responsible for doing this?¡±


    ¡°I do. He is a tier one edger who has been doing the job for just over a year. According to him, he thought breaking into the store in that fashion was a smart idea.¡± Stick-Point walked up to the doorway and looked in on Trace, lying unconscious on the table. His right arm was missing, and the entire right side of his body was a mess of holding pins and casts. ¡°No one ever said those who entered the edger field were smart, but this move was beyond the pale.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s going to happen to him?¡± Sevorah asked. ¡°We¡¯ve stabilized him for the moment, but doing anything more than this will require credits.¡±


    Monroe growled at her. ¡°I already told you, woman! I¡¯ll sell everything we brought back from our trip. We had planned on keeping most of it, but if we sell it all, it should fetch between thirty-five and fifty thousand credits.¡±


    Stick-Point raised an interested brow. ¡°What exactly did you bring back?¡±


    ¡°A ton of ammo in their cans, and a bunch of mixed supplies in boxes. The big earner is something we wanted to keep for ourselves.¡± He scratched at his throat, imagining what he was giving up on. ¡°We brought back hundreds of cans of food. Some are newish, within the last thirty years or so, but there are others that are labeled as being from fifty and even a couple of from seventy years. None of them were bulging either, so they¡¯re all good to go.¡±


    The three others hissed in appreciation and awe at that.


    ¡°What about the arms we retrieved the other day?¡± Ko asked her employer at last.


    ¡°No good. They have to be used with their specific NetConnects. Which I admit are good, but they have layers of security. I haven¡¯t been able to check the programming on either item, yet beyond a few basic tests.¡±


    Ko nibbled at her lower lip before coming to a decision. ¡°Trace and I have a friend who can probably help with that particular problem. I¡¯m not sure, I¡¯d have to ask, and it could take a day or three, but I believe they can do it. We¡¯ll just need to pull out the best items for him to work on.¡±


    The mender crossed her arms and began pacing up and down the hallway as she thought. ¡°Are you sure your friend can unlock them, and remove all traces of the original owners and corporation control programs?¡±


    Ko shrugged, and then slowly nodded.


    ¡°Talk to your friend. I want a definite answer on this one,¡± Sevorah told her. ¡°If they can clean up one of the NetConnects and an arm for him, then that will drive down the cost a lot. We¡¯ll only need to replace the shoulder joint, along with a few bones, and add some synth-muscle to reinforce everything.¡±


    Her apprentice winced, turning to Monroe. ¡°You better hope you can get the full amount for that food and ammo.¡± The supplies probably weren¡¯t worth all that much.


    Stick-Point coughed. ¡°I am unable to offer monetary aid to Trace. No job broker is allowed to deal with any edger in that fashion. Otherwise, we could simply raise up our favored edgers with all the best gear and modules. However, you just so happened to have brought back a good that I am allowed to purchase without notifying my peers. The cans of food. Unfortunately, the ammo you will still need to sell on your own.¡±


    Sevorah grinned and turned to Ko. ¡°Grab the best ones from the freezer and get your friend working on them. I¡¯ll go order the items we need to finish up his surgery. You two,¡± She pointed to Monroe and Stick-Point. ¡°Go complete your business and then come back here. I¡¯m going to need that money to buy the synth-muscles. I¡¯ll need to take some measurements of his existing bones in the places we are going to be replacing them. Lots to do.¡±


    She left in a sudden flurry of activity.


    ¡°You heard her, get moving.¡± Ko clapped her hands and ran to their cold storage. She was going to fetch some of the dead cyberware pieces for Deckard to look at first. After he had played around with those pieces, then she would bring him the real thing.


    ***


    Deckard was sitting on the counter of her apartment, his avatar looking incredibly bored. Without the 3D printer project to keep him busy, he had nothing else to do. What was worse was that Ko didn¡¯t have a desk computer or anything else for him to interface with. All he could do was sit there for hours on end and think.


    There were benefits to be had in the progress of defragging his mind and fragmented memories. However, overall, it was dull. His mind wanted stimulation.


    Still, he found himself startled when Ko burst into the apartment with a long duffel bag that he soon learned contained an arm and a bare NetConnect. It only took a couple of minutes for her to relay everything that had happened to him.


    He agreed to help instantly, only partially because of how bored he was. The NetConnect was plugged into him, and the arm, in turn, connected to it through the test connection port.


    He delved into the code of the NetConnect first, and it was here that he ran into a curious problem. The device was using a kludged together OS. It was a mix of the old-school programming language he liked and that infernal new programming language that he had already come to despise. In fact, the longer he looked at it, the more obvious the changes became.


    The OS proper had never actually been updated. It was just that shizz-filled programming language covering everything. They had overlayed all the original pieces with a fancy-looking interface and then called it a day. Even this supposedly corpo-locked-down version was no better. All it actually did was prevent the user from accessing certain items in their updated interface. It did nothing to lock away the functionality of the original OS because it couldn¡¯t.


    The people in that day and age could still learn to program in the old style. He had talked to Trace about it and knew the information was available on the learning modules he possessed. They were simply being lazy and didn¡¯t.


    A rather poor showing for a corporation with enough power to be playing around with aberrations. Supposedly, none of this was that corporation¡¯s specialty. Still, he found it rather hard to believe that they could be this¡­ Ignorant? He wasn¡¯t even sure, really. When the incompetence happened at such a high level as this, what did it actually signify?


    Fund embezzling? Lack of awareness?


    There were many options, really. All that truly mattered was that it meant he would be able to fix the problem with little actual issue. Eventually, he would need to return to the OS and create an actual update for it, if for no other reason than because now it would bug him until he did it.